One year on from the Taliban's stunning return to power in Afghanistan, divisions within the insurgent group-turned-rulers are surfacing. Infamous during their first reign for their brutal crackdowns on rights and freedoms, the Islamists vowed to rule differently this time. On a superficial level at least, they appear to have changed in some respects. But the group's hardline core is against any significant ideological change that could be viewed as a sign of capitulation to their enemies in the West. "The demands and needs of the Afghans remain the same as twenty years ago," Mohammad Omar Khitabi, a member of a council of clerics who advise Akhundzada in Kandahar, tells AFP. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES