Former President Donald Trump praised the Taliban on Tuesday, calling the group "smart" and "good fighters."

"The Taliban, good fighters, I will tell you, good fighters. You have to give them credit for that. They've been fighting for a thousand years. What they do is they fight," Trump said on Fox News' "The Sean Hannity Show" on August 17.

"The Taliban has circled the airport, and who knows if they're going to treat us right? All of a sudden, they'll say — well, frankly, if they were smart, they'd really — and they are smart. They are smart. They should let the Americans out," Trump said to Hannity.

But Trump's claim that the Taliban has been around for 1,000 years is erroneous. The organization was founded in September 1994 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Composed of fighters called the mujahideen, the group took control of the capital, Kabul, in 1996, but it lost power in 2001 after American forces invaded.


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