Agencies-Gaza post
Taliban marks one year in power
The Taliban announced Monday a public holiday to mark the first anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan, a year celebrated by a sharp backlash in women’s rights and a deep humanitarian situation.
On August 15, 2021, in gratitude to the withdrawal of US and NATO forces after 20 years of military intervention in the country, fundamentalist Islamists recaptured the capital Kabul without a battle at the end of a nationwide blitzkrieg against the government troops.
“We fulfilled the obligation of jihad and liberated our country,” Niamatullah Hekmat said, a Taliban fighter who had entered Kabul that day, just hours after ousted president Ashraf Ghani had fled the country.
The chaotic withdrawal of foreign troops still until August 31, with tens of thousands of panicked civilians rushing to the capital’s only airport to leave the country on any available flight.
The pictures of crowds of people storming aircraft parked on the airport runway by climbing onto them, or hanging from a US Army cargo plane about to take off, are etched in my memory.
Apart from declaring today a public holiday, no official anniversary festivals have been reported so far, but state television said it would broadcast special programs, without further details.
A year on, Taliban fighters are communicating their joy that their movement is now in power, while aid agencies, for their part, are saying concerned that half of the 38 million citizens of the country are faced with extreme poverty.
“When we entered Kabul and when the Americans left, there were moments of joy,” added Niamatullah Hekmat, now a member of the special troop and attached to the presidential palace guard.
But for ordinary Afghans, and especially for women, the recovery from the Taliban has greatly raised the difficulties.
Very quickly and despite their initial promise, the country’s new experts largely reverted to the ultra-conservative understanding of Islam that had characterized their first stint in power, from 1996 to 2001, hardly curtailing women’s rights.
“They took everything from us”
Women are banned from many public offices and are prohibited to travel alone outside their city.
In March, the Islamists again closed high schools and universities for girls, just hours after their long-announced reopening.
In early May, the Taliban’s supreme leader summoned women to wear fully covering clothing, preferably the burqa, in public.
“From the day they came, life lost its meaning,” stated Ogai Amail, a resident of Kabul. “They grabbed everything from us, they even entered our personal space,” he added.
The day before yesterday, Saturday, in Kabul, Taliban soldiers violently spread, hitting with the butts of their rifles and shooting into the air, around 40 women who were showing up for their rights to work and education.
Although Afghans acknowledge a contraction in violence with the ending of the war following the Taliban’s rise to power, many are suffering from an acute economic and humanitarian crisis.
“People who come to our shops complain so much about the high prices that we traders even start to hate what we do,” said Noor Mohammad, a trader in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, the historic home of the Taliban and a center of their authority.
For Islamist militants, however, the joy of victory avoids the current economic crisis.
“We may be poor, we may be facing difficulties, but the white flag of Islam will now fly forever in Afghanistan,” said one of them, who stands guard in a public park in Kabul.
