As the black-turbaned mullahs of the Taliban gather in Kabul and Kandahar to hash out how they’ll govern, the decisions they make will offer the world clues to whether they remain the same brutal regime that controlled Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion in 2001 or adopt a less extreme version of Islamic rule.

Change was not originally in the mullahs’ plans. While they declared an Islamic emirate in name Thursday, it was not clear they would bring back the rules and regulations of their former 1990s government, according to current and former U.S. and Western officials, that repressed women and used public amputations, beheadings and stonings as not only criminal punishments but also entertainment for a population denied access to television or music.