Haven’t you got the analogy backwards? The Taliban was the tyranical central government; the Northern Allience was the rural-based insurection. They both had left over Soviet heavy weapons. The Taliban could not finally defeat the NA; the NA could not drive out the Taliban, until the Americans sent them aid and air support.
Also, neither the Taliban nor the NA had anything like the technological economy and society that the US does, although the Afgans do have some spectaculary talented gunsmiths who can duplicate even modern small arms with 18th-19th Century hand tools.
VietVet
Actually, you have it backwards. The Northern Alliance was the remnants of the legal government of Afghanistan that had been driven out of Kabul by the Taleban insurrectionists in 1996.
Nevertheless, you are almost hitting on something that proves your point here, in that it did demonstrate that in a technologically backwards country like afghanistan, rebellion to overthrow a government is still possible, because neither government of afghanistan had an air force worth talking about, or anything like the technology that would be available to a western government.
It is certainly possible to produce simple weapons like guns, mortars and IEDs under the kinds of conditions that Taleban are fighting under, but you cannot match government weaponary in terms of guided missiles, helicopter gunships, tanks and aircraft. Cutting-edge high-tech weaponary is so absurdly complex that it has to be made by a team scores or even hundreds strong at the least. You can’t just knock it together in your own garage, and you certainly can’t mass produce it, no matter how technologically talented some of the guys on your side might be....