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“For us, it is a day of liberation,” stated Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who was among the many first items to enter Kabul. “By the grace of God in a single yr, we have now introduced safety to Kabul and eradicated corruption,” he stated.
The Taliban takeover of Kabul did finish greater than twenty years of battle, however it has additionally shattered lives, gutted an already struggling health-care system and thrown the nation into uncertainty amid harsh crackdowns on ladies’s rights and a spiraling financial disaster.
Later within the day, a bunch of Taliban leaders took to the stage to declare victory over overseas “occupiers” and to rejoice the achievements of their first yr in energy as an Islamic Emirate.
As the group in central Kabul for the rally grew, younger youngsters wearing stained, threadbare clothes appeared on the sidelines, begging onlookers and members of the Taliban for pocket change. “Please, I haven’t eaten. I simply wish to purchase one piece of bread,” they stated repeatedly, shifting by way of the group. A few of the revelers gave them cash; others shooed them away.
The Taliban fighters celebrating on a roundabout admitted they’ve seen the Afghan capital slip deeper into poverty throughout their yr in energy.
“When you find yourself liberated, it’s essential to endure hardship,” Shahab stated. He claimed the group has a plan to enhance Afghanistan’s economic system and that the nation will ultimately rebound.
“The invaders have been by no means going to enhance the economic system,” he stated, noting the excessive ranges of poverty that existed in Afghanistan for years earlier than the Taliban takeover.
“They have been simply right here for their very own pursuits. We’re right here for the Afghan individuals,” he stated.
Elsewhere in Kabul, Taliban checkpoints blocked roads, successfully stopping any counter-demonstrations and leaving some residents feeling trapped inside their very own houses on the lately declared nationwide vacation.
Teams of ladies hoping to publicly protest bans on schooling for women frantically exchanged messages looking for a secure place to collect. A small protest was held indoors after they have been unable to assemble outdoors.
However many ladies had already determined to stay at house. Some have been nonetheless recovering from accidents after being overwhelmed on the street by Taliban fighters dispersing the same protest simply days in the past. Others feared arrest.
“I’m simply sitting in my house crying,” a feminine activist wrote in a message. She requested that her title not be printed for concern of Taliban reprisals. “They are saying it is a freedom day, however for us, at the present time marks catastrophe. The state of affairs is just turning into an increasing number of harmful.”
However for others in Kabul, Taliban rule has been met with appreciation. In Utkhel, a working-class Kabul neighborhood primarily made up of Pashtuns — the ethnic group that dominates the Taliban motion — residents say the group lowered road crime and immoral influences on their society.
“I’m very pleased they’re right here. Earlier than they got here individuals have been promoting medicine and stealing issues. There have been TV dramas that confirmed ladies working away with boys. Now that has stopped,” stated a shopkeeper in his 30s who gave his title as Sanaullah. “There was an excessive amount of freedom. We’re all Muslims, and now we’re nearer to Islam.”
Like many residents, he lamented the horrible state of the economic system. On his counter was a thick pocket book of things individuals had bought on credit score, some objects as small as a field of laundry detergent. “Sure, we face poverty now, however we have now Islam with us and we should be affected person,” he stated.
In the course of the official afternoon gathering, defiance, safety and autonomy have been central to Taliban messaging marking the anniversary Monday.
“I congratulate everybody for reaching our aim of complete freedom and independence,” stated Abdul Salaam Hanafi, the Taliban’s performing deputy prime minister from a spacious, fashionable auditorium full of Taliban members who held on his each phrase. He boasted that Afghanistan is now an “Islamic system the place everybody has full rights, no injustice and 0 corruption.”
Scenes of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Kabul airport performed on a display screen behind the stage all through the speeches.
“A steady and safe Afghanistan means a steady and safe world,” declared performing International Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. “Our territory is all beneath management now, there can be no extra preventing, and the nation is with us.”
Among the many tens of 1000’s who frantically tried to flee after Taliban forces arrived, was a physician who stated roadblock after roadblock stored him from making it to the gates. “It was complete chaos, and really harmful. We lastly gave up and went house,” he stated, asking to be recognized solely as Habib for concern of reprisals.
As we speak the gates to Kabul airport are quiet. Kids journey bicycles previous the spot alongside the Abby gate canal the place a suicide bomber killed almost 200 individuals final yr. However the space stays strewn with remnants of these determined to flee.
Scraps of clothes nonetheless cling from coils of barbed wire, discarded riot shields lie in heaps and wrappers from navy rations litter the road.
The Taliban fighters now guarding the gate stated they took up the place simply hours after the airlift ended and the realm has been calm ever since.
“The foreigners have been scaring Afghans to go away, however now individuals see that life is okay,” stated Muhammadullah Abudijane, one of many guards on the gate. “And it’s higher for us, we by no means had towers earlier than, we have been all the time within the mountains on the run.”
The physician who tried to flee now spends his days making an attempt to consolation sufferers at a small personal medical clinic in Kabul. Many complain of melancholy and anxiousness in addition to bodily illnesses.
“Persons are so hopeless now. Many come to me in tears,” he stated. “Males have been fired after years, or they apply for jobs and are informed their diplomas imply nothing. Girls beg me for drugs to calm their nerves however can not afford to pay for it. All I can do is hearken to their issues, however it makes me depressed, too.”
In western Kabul, potato vendor Sharullah Safi, 40, is struggling to make ends meet beneath the financial disaster, however he stated his biggest concern is for his youngsters’s future. His daughter needs to be in seventh grade however is banned from faculty.
In the case of schooling, he stated, “the Taliban have made a giant mistake.”