Taliban Afghanistan 2 years on

Report from a forgotten land

"There is hardly anyone here who doesn't want to get out," says Mohammad Zahed, who is sitting on the floor of his living room cutting up fruit for his five-year-old daughter. The topic around every table these days is how to flee daily life in Afghanistan. At the same time, the market for travel documents is booming, he says. Getting a visa for Pakistan, Iran or Kazakhstan now costs a three-digit sum.

The same applies to an Afghan passport. Zahed once worked as a communications technician for the German armed forces and U.S. troops. He installed communication lines, earning good money and making new friends. Without his expertise, the Western soldiers stationed in Afghanistan for twenty years would not have been able to communicate with each other.

Then, in August 2021, the Taliban arrived. The international troops pulled out and everything collapsed. "They shirked their responsibility," says Zahed, summing up the situation today. He means not only the general political responsibility borne by the West for the disaster but also his employers' responsibility for him.

Unlike many other so-called local staff, Zahed received no offers for evacuation. He is still living with his family in Kabul, or rather: he has gone into hiding in Kabul. As a former ally of the Western troops, he is considered an enemy and a traitor in the eyes of the new rulers.

It was only later that Zahed came to understand that he had been a part of a war-obsessed military apparatus that was never really concerned with the welfare of the Afghan people.

Children in Afghanistan: in view of the catastrophic humanitarian situation, children in many families have to help support the family. But the children are also being indoctrinated by the Taliban and dream of emulating them. "When I grow up, I want to be just like my father. Someday I'll have my own unit," says Bilal, who is just eight years old. A few metres away, near the Darul Aman Palace in western Kabul, Bilal's father is patrolling the area with a few other Taliban fighters

Afghanistan's new Islamic Emirate

For two years now, the militant Islamist Taliban have once again ruled over Afghanistan. The old army has crumbled and the republican government has fled into exile. Back in October 2001, after al-Qaida's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S.-led NATO troops invaded the country and the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" fell.

The "War on Terror" began. But it in fact was waged for the most part on innocent Afghans, while many of the Taliban leaders who had been declared dead after supposedly precise counterterrorism operations by the U.S. military or CIA later turned up very much alive and celebrated their success.

Now the Taliban emirate is once again a reality that Afghans cannot escape. White flags displaying the Shahada, the Islamic creed, are omnipresent in various formats. The Taliban are said to have spent several million U.S. dollars on such flags, while the population starves and careens from one crisis to the next.

On 15 August 2023, the Taliban celebrated their "victory" over the Western troops and their Afghan allies with a propagandistic pageant, just as they did in 2022. Cavalcades of cars and motorcycles drove through the city, the Taliban waving their white flags. But they put on the show for themselves alone. Many other Afghans were practically banished to their homes.

Shops were forced to close and the streets of the capital were deserted. The new rulers are evidently afraid of the kind of bombings they themselves once perpetrated. The greatest threat is still posed by the IS cell in Afghanistan.

Sold down the river by corrupt politicians and military chiefs

Many Afghans believe that the Taliban were never actually defeated militarily. Instead, they say, the country was sold down the river through political deals, most notably a 2020 agreement reached in the Gulf emirate of Qatar between the Taliban and the Trump administration, and thanks to corrupt politicians and military chiefs.

Teaching underground: volunteers teach girls who are no longer allowed to attend secondary school. University courses for women also continue underground, as do the beauty salons recently banned by the Taliban. They not only not only secured the livelihood of many women and promoted their independence but were also a meeting place. "These idiots see prostitution and moral decay everywhere," says a worker angrily as he helps clear out a beauty salon. Those who refuse to vacate their salons face fines and expropriation

But even if true, that circumstance does nothing to change the narrative that the new rulers want to impose. A year ago, masked extremists marched through the capital while the relatives of suicide bombers were being courted by the regime. The state radio and television station RTA, which once tried to present itself as diverse and modern, displayed an array of explosive vests, Kalashnikovs and hand grenades.

The Taliban are also busy indoctrinating children, who dream of emulating them. "When I grow up, I want to be just like my father. Someday I'll have my own unit," says Bilal, who is just eight years old. A few metres away, near the Darul Aman Palace in western Kabul, Bilal's father is patrolling the area with a few other Taliban fighters.

The Kabul summer is taking its toll on them. Passing cars are waved through with disinterest. "What else are these kids supposed to learn? Violence is everywhere here – and it will be our future," says Hakim (the name has been changed, ed.), who has now become accustomed not only to Bilal and his father, but to most Taliban fighters in the Afghan capital. In the old days, the cab driver used to hardly ever venture out of Kabul, and he avoided the areas controlled by the Taliban.