Taliban dress code tightens cord around Afghan women, and men

KABUL -- Western-style clothes maker Najib Ahmad Rahimi knew his business could be in trouble when the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan three years ago.

Rahimi was selling T-shirts, jeans and other apparel from his three shops in Kabul, but turban-and-tunic-wearing Taliban officials had banned Western clothing when they first took control of the country in the mid-1990s. The clothes seller worried that history would repeat itself.