The Taliban have settled in as rulers of Afghanistan, two years after they seized power as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country following two decades of war.
The Taliban face no significant opposition that could topple them. They have avoided internal divisions by falling in line behind their ideologically unbending leader. They have kept a struggling economy afloat, in part by holding investment talks with capital-rich regional countries, even as the international community withholds formal recognition. They have improved domestic security through crackdowns on armed groups such as the Islamic State, and say they are fighting corruption and opium production.
But it’s their slew of bans on Afghan girls and women that dominated the Taliban’s second year in charge. They barred them from parks, gyms, universities, and jobs at nongovernmental groups and the United Nations – all in the space of a few months – allegedly because they weren’t wearing proper hijab — the Islamic head covering — or violated gender segregation rules. These orders followed a previous ban, issued in the first year of Taliban rule, on girls going to school beyond sixth grade.
Here is a closer look at Taliban rule and where they are headed.
The Taliban say they are committed to implementing their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in Afghanistan. This leaves no space for anything they think is foreign or secular, such as women working or studying. It’s what drove them in the late 1990s, when they first seized power in Afghanistan, and it propels them now, ever since they took control again on Aug. 15, 2021.
Their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has praised the changes imposed since the takeover, claiming life improved for Afghan women after foreign troops left and the hijab became mandatory again.
Foreign governments, rights groups, and global bodies condemned the restrictions. The U.N. said they were a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining international recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Overseas aid is drying up as major donors stop their funding, pulled in different directions by other crises and worried their money might fall into Taliban hands.
The lack of funds, as well as the exclusion of Afghan women from delivering essential humanitarian services, is hitting the population hard, pushing more people into poverty.
Nearly 80% of the previous, Western-backed Afghan government’s budget came from the international community. That money — now largely cut off — financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries. The COVID-19 pandemic, medical shortages, climate change and malnutrition have made life more desperate for Afghans. Aid agencies have stepped into the breach to provide basic services like health care.
Afghanistan is struggling with its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions, the ongoing collapse in families’ income, and restrictions on international banking. It’s also still suffering from decades of war and natural disasters.
The World Bank said last month that the local currency, the afghani, gained value against major currencies. Customers can withdraw more money from individual deposits made before August 2021 and most civil servants are being paid. The World Bank described revenue collection as “healthy” and said most basic items remained available, although demand is low.
The Taliban have held investment talks with countries in the region, including China and Kazakhstan. They want sanctions removed and billions of dollars in frozen funds to be released, saying these measures will alleviate the suffering of Afghans. But the international community will only take such steps once the Taliban take certain actions, including lifting restrictions on women and girls.
It's largely up to the Taliban leader, Akhundzada. The cleric counts like-minded government ministers and Islamic scholars among his circle. He is behind the decrees on women and girls. His edicts, framed in the language of Islamic law, are absolute. The bans will only be lifted if Akhundzada orders it. Some Taliban figures have spoken out against the way decisions are made, and there has been disagreement about the bans on women and girls. But the Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid slammed these reports as propaganda.
“The secret of their success is that they are united,” Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as the Taliban envoy to Pakistan when they ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, said. “If someone expresses his opinion or his thoughts, it doesn't mean someone is against the leadership or will go to another side," said Zaeef who spent several years at the Guantanamo Bay detention center after the 2001 U.S. invasion. "Disagreements are put in front of the emir (Akhundzada) and he decides. They follow his word.”
Aid officials say the Taliban view recognition as an entitlement, not something to be negotiated. The officials also cite high-level meetings with powerful states like China and Russia as signs that the Taliban are building bilateral relations in their own way. Qatar’s prime minister met Akhundzada in the southwestern Afghan city of Kandahar in June, the first-such publicly known meeting between the supreme leader and a foreign official.
Even though the Taliban are officially isolated on the global stage, they appear to have enough interactions and engagement for ties with countries to inch toward normalization. Cooperation with the Taliban on narcotics, refugees and counter-terrorism is of interest globally, including to the West. Countries like China, Russia and neighboring Pakistan want an end to sanctions.
“The political interactions are such that no country in the region is thinking of bringing Afghanistan under their power or control,” said Zaeef. He said the Taliban's foreign outreach is hampered by blacklists preventing officials from traveling, and by lacking common ground with the rest of the world.
There’s no armed or political opposition with enough domestic or foreign support to topple the Taliban. A fighting force resisting Taliban rule from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul is being violently purged. Public protests are rare.
The Islamic State has struck high-profile targets in deadly bombings, including two government ministries, but the militants lack fighters, money and other resources to wage a major offensive against the Taliban.
© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
23 Comments
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WA4TKG
It’s what they wanted.
Enjoy or you should have escaped
elephant200
That's ok, they have their traditions and social practice. I think the women of Afghanistan were having more rights than US occupation era.
Peter14
A total and complete lie. The women sure do not share his thoughts. Many are looking for any way to leave Afghanistan so they can be educated, can work and lead a normal civilized life as they raise a family in freedom.
The cost of living in a society ruled by barbarians.
Because the Taliban will only use funds for men. Women will as always remain at home, unable to socialize, work (except in extremely limited numbers) or be educated.
Some few have support for more freedoms for women, but not enough.
They need support to effectively fight the cruel and repressive Taliban.
The majority of men are enjoying so much power to repress women, while some hide the fact they do not agree to such measures. The women have no rights at all unless a man grants them, and even then they are strictly limited by Taliban laws.
Someone needs to liberate that enslaved nation, and do it properly. The last time it was just to hunt down terrorists and oppose the Taliban. Little was done to properly train people to do anything other than govern. They needed engineers, scientists, doctors, mechanics that can maintain modern equipment, design and build for themselves like other sovereign nations. Rather than out source to foreign nations who all pulled out when the foreign soldiers left. They had a government that could govern but no means to support the equipment they had, or to build new infrastructure or run as normal nations do.
The women can leave Afghanistan if they are very lucky, or live in misery and loneliness at the beck and call of men.
And the world just watches this injustice continue to unfold because the UN has no desire to help. Not enough to take the needed actions. What a sad species we sometime show ourselves to be. Indifferent to others pain when it suits us. Allowing such injustice to survive and grow. No wonder it is never ending.
Garthgoyle
I do not understand how Xi is totally fine with doing business with them. Even for him, it should be low af what they're doing to women in Afghanistan.
Mr Kipling
The Taliban just follow traditional Pashtun culture. Nothing has changed. We only hear the opposition from the elite in Kabul, of which there is quite rightly a lot. The Taliban have support, especially in the south. Not that the western media will ever mention this.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Said no one ever.
TaiwanIsNotChina
You have an extra $2 trillion and 1/4 a million troops lying around? Or even a better a functional country in your back pocket? No, the effort was made and the Afghans weren't having what was provided at that price.
wallace
elephant200
have you been asleep for 20 years?
Peter14
No it was not made. Restrictions on Afghans learning anything technical. In twenty years they should have had the engineers and mechanics in their own people to maintain helicopters, tanks, jets but they were not allowed. All that work was done by foreign workers who left. The military that had been trained had no support, insufficient logistics, no signals or intel systems of their own. So many things were never done in the time they had and that is why the lop sided, half built military collapsed.
To be fair the International forces were not there for nation building, they were hunting terrorists and providing protection. They did nothing to build the required infrastructure in civilian or military fields. The Afghan military was to make up numbers to assist the international forces. It was very limited in ability. Why was a force of Jet fighters not built up with domestic pilots and maintenance workers? Five years schooling, plus another five for training and in ten years they could have been producing what they needed to build up such a force. The international money did not plan for the future or provide the training education and equipment Afghanistan would need to remain free of the Taliban.
It is a hard thing to realise and much easier to simply accuse the Afghans of not caring. But it was a botched job of setting up, even though they got the terrorists they were after.
Legrande
There are a lot of countries where women's rights are curtailed (i.e. Kuwait), but the US would like to have the option of going back, so these type of stories get circulated in the press so that another invasion can be more easily justified.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I don't think Kuwaiti women have to wear the bee keeper suits and are prevented totally from getting secondary education.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Who do you think armed and trained the 1/4 million Afghan army? How many years do you think it takes to train an engineer? How many engineers once trained want to remain in the country? How much money disappears due to corruption? All the while people will complain that you aren't feeding the citizens. And then you have the terrorism. If you haven't studied Vietnam and the Afghan war in detail, I suggest you stop just assuming the Americans were too stupid or didn't know how to do nation building. No one has done it better.
OssanAmerica
This should be the absolute top issue of the UN Human Rights Council. But it's not. Why?
Mr Kipling
Hilarious that some people still believe this. There may have been nearly that number of salaries paid but the number in uniform was much lower. Corruption is a national industry. Those in uniform were not interested in anything other than taking the money. Afghanistan is not a nation state as most of us understand it. Tribe, religion and ethnic group are far more important to most.
winston
And now the USA is sending the taliban money
餓死鬼
Just like that, no problem? As easy as excusing yourself from a party?
winston
I can definitely think of nations that were more intelligently built and better than by the USA.
Less than 300 years of existence isn't exactly impressive now is it
The USA is a nation modeled after a nation that crumbled due to it's own corruption and the inability to protect its own borders and the repercussions of hegemonic agenda.
Exactly what's enevitably happening to the USA slowly but surely.
winston
There's really no need to announce you don't think
Peter14
TaiwanIsNotChina
After WWII the allies did a great job with Japan and West Germany. Both are success stories. Afghanistan was a complete failure. The facts are there for all to see. They did the job they were sent there for and after twenty years they failed at nation building. No amount of talk will alter that fact. It is why the Taliban walked back into power and why the country is all but destroyed.
Sven Asai
No need to discuss it further. It is, for everyone with a few brain cells, a multiple times proven no go area. The experiences of Russians, Americans and the Afghans themselves should now be more than sufficient to give everyone a little hint how to handle that. Flee when inside, ignore when outside. That's all to it.
TaiwanIsNotChina
That's exactly my point: huge percentages, perhaps over 50% of what is spent in a country like Afghanistan disappears into corruption. You're not going to be teaching engineers in that environment.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Hilarious on all points.
Name one. Chances are they were "built" in the 19th century when there weren't such qualms about human rights.
Longer than Russia or China's current governments.
Lol, I'll take the 1000 years of the Roman state over anything you have to offer.
By your own calculation we only have 750 years to go! Your hoped for end of Pax Americana is almost here! Better take your vitamins, though.
If you don't have any evidence to offer, you don't have to post.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Could it be that Japan and Germany had a history of education, government and industry?
I'm trying to tell you why that happened despite the preeminent nation builder being involved, but please tell us more about how you develop an Afghan fighter jet.