The entrepreneur still looking to invest in Taliban-run Kabul

Said Bashir Jalili says Afghans must be willing to put resources into their country in order to revive it

Buffalo Kings sports lounge is one of Said Bashir Jalili's two restaurants in Kabul. The other is the Prime Steakhouse. Photo: Ali M Latifi

Afghan entrepreneur Said Bashir Jalili was on holiday with his family in Istanbul when he received calls from the 10 Turkish members of staff in his two Kabul restaurants — Prime Steakhouse and Buffalo Kings sports lounge — to say they had been told by their embassy that they must leave the country.

That was on August 15, 2021, and for the previous 11 days Mr Jalili, like Afghans around the world, had been on his phone, constantly reading text updates as province after province fell to the Taliban.

By late afternoon, the news arrived that the president, Ashraf Ghani, had fled the country and that the Taliban were walking into Kabul. Mr Jalili worried for his restaurants, in which he had invested more than $2 million to set up in 2020, but he was more worried for his staff.

“My biggest investment isn’t the businesses, it’s our people,” he says by phone from Dubai, where he spends his time when not in Kabul.

That first evening, few people ventured outside, and most businesses put the shutters down as people waited out yet another political upheaval in Afghanistan in their homes.

“There wasn’t order on the streets, no one knew who was a Talib and who was a thief, so everyone stayed in,” he says.

Military leaders attend a flag-lowering ceremony in Afghanistan on June 24, 2021 as the UK’s contribution in the country draws to a close. A number of troops were to remain to offer diplomatic assurance to the international community in Kabul. Getty Images

A member of the Afghan security personnel looks distraught as he stands guard at the site of a car bomb explosion near the defence minister's home in Kabul, on August 4, 2021. AFP

Security officials inspect the scene of an attack on Dawa Khan Menapal, the head of the Afghan government's information centre, in Kabul on August 6, 2021. Taliban militants shot him dead. EPA

People are stranded at the Pakistani-Afghan border which has been closed by the Taliban, who have taken control of the Afghan side, on August 9, 2021. EPA

US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (2nd L) arrives at a hotel in Qatar's capital Doha for a meeting on the escalating conflict in Afghanistan, on August 10, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters driving through Herat, Afghanistan's third-biggest city, on August 13, 2021 after under-siege government forces had pulled out the previous day. AFP

Taliban militants gather in the main square after taking control of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on August 13, 2021. The fall of Kandahar came hours after the Taliban had captured Herat. EPA

Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani and acting defence minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi visit military corps in Kabul on August 14, 2021. Reuters

Internally displaced families from northern provinces, who fled from their homes due to the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, take shelter in a public park in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 14, 2021. EPA

People at the border checkpoint at Chaman, Pakistan on August 15, 2021. Pakistani authorities had reopened the frontier with Afghanistan on August 13 after several days of closure. EPA

Afghan police on duty on August 15, 2021 after the Taliban had taken over Kandahar. The militants have by this stage reached the outskirts of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. EPA

Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Taliban's director for information and culture, talks to journalists after the government in Kandahar had surrendered to the militants. EPA

Taliban fighters and local people sit on an Afghan National Army armoured vehicle on a street in Jalalabad province on August 15, 2021. AFP

Afghan families flee Kabul on August 15, 2021. The Taliban said they do not intend to enter Kabul 'by force or war, but to negotiate with the other side to enter peacefully". Getty Images

Tens of thousands of people attempt to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline rule expected under the Taliban, on August 15, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take control of the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, after the president Ashraf Ghani had fled the country, on August 15, 2021. AP

Hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force transport plane on the runway of the international airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country. Some held on to the jet as it took off and fell to their death. AP

Thousands of Afghans rush to the Hamid Karzai International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul, on August 16, 2021. Getty Images

A US soldier points his gun at a man at Kabul airport on August 16, 2021, after a swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war. Thousands of people mobbed the airport in a bid to flee. AFP

Crowds on the tarmac of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, on August 16, 2021. EPA

People clamber on top a plane at the Kabul airport on August 16, 2021. AFP

These Afghan passengers made it. They sit inside a plane and wait to leave Kabul. AFP

Afghan women, holding placards, gather to demand the protection of women's rights in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul, on August 17, 2021. Getty Images

British citizens living in Afghanistan board a military plane to leave Kabul Airport, on August 16, 2021. Reuters

Luggage belonging to Afghan people, who were waiting to be evacuated. at the site of two suicide bombs, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops, at Kabul airport on August 27, 2021. AFP

Afghans, including those who worked for the US, Nato, the European Union and the United Nations, wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country, after Taliban took control of Kabul, on August 17, 2021. EPA

People queue at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border point in Chaman on August 17, 2021 to cross back to Afghanistan. AFP

People wait to board a French military transport plane on August 17, 2021 to escape Kabul and Taliban rule. AFP

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, gives his first press conference in Kabul on August 17, 2021. The new leadership said it would not seek revenge on those who had fought against them and would protect the rights of Afghan women within the rules of Sharia. EPA

Young men who say they deserted the Afghan military trudge through the countryside in Tatvan, eastern Turkey, on August 17, 2021. Turkey was concerned about increased migration across the Iranian border as Afghans fled from the Taliban. AP

A young demonstrator at a vigil in support of Afghanistan at the West Los Angeles Federal Building, California on August 17, 2021. EPA

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan holds a press briefing to talk about the recent events in Afghanistan, at the White House on August 17,2021. EPA

A Taliban fighter walks past a beauty salon with images of women defaced using spray paint in Shar-e-Naw in Kabul on August 18, 2021. AFP

People among the first evacuees from Kabul, arrive at Frankfurt International Airport in western Germany in the early hours of August 18, 2021. AFP

A transport plane evacuating refugees out of Afghanistan lands at Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, August 19, 2021. Pawan Singh / The National

Afghanistan's former president Ashraf Ghani talks in video message, somewhere in the UAE, on August 18, 2021, in his first media appearance since the fall of Kabul only days earlier. Reuters

Displaced children wait for the next flight at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul on August 19, 2021. AFP

An Afghan man waves a national flag to celebrate the 102nd Independence Day of Afghanistan in Kabul on August 19, 2021, days after the Taliban's military takeover of the country. AFP

The US military helps to reunite families at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 20, 2021. AFP

A US Marine comforts an infant while they wait for the mother during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 21, 2021. Reuters

New personnel in the Afghan security forces take part in military training in Panjshir province on August 21, 2021. AFP

US President Joe Biden speaks to his national security team during a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan, on August 22, 2021, in Washington. AFP

Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard welcomes members of Afghanistan's robotics team after arriving in Mexico to apply for humanitarian status on August 24, 2021. Reuters

Belongings of Afghan people, who were evacuated from Kabul, are laid on the ground at Torrejon Military Air Base on August 24, 2021 in Madrid. Getty Images

Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two powerful explosions, which killed at least six people, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021. AFP

Flag-draped coffins of service members killed in action are loaded on to a transport aircraft during a ramp ceremony at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 27, 2021. Reuters

Afghan evacuees at the Emirates Humanitarian City, Abu Dhabi, on August 28, 2021. Victor Besa / The National

Smoke billows after an explosion near the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul on August 29, 2021. EPA

A vigil for Max Soviak, one of 13 US service members killed in the airport suicide bombing in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, in Berlin Heights, Ohio on August 29, 2021. Reuters

A Taliban member stands guard near a vehicle which was used to fire rockets at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. EPA

World Health Organisation supplies land in Afghanistan. Photo: WHO

Major Gen Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. His departure closes the US mission to evacuate US citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and vulnerable Afghans. AFP

Fireworks after the last US aircraft took off from the airport in Kabul early on August 31, 2021, signalling its complete withdrawal after 20 years in the country. AFP

Afghans wait for the banks to open in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan Air Force A-29 attack aircraft inside a hangar at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021, after the US pulled all its troops out of the country. AFP

Taliban fighters sit in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan resistance movement and anti-Taliban uprising forces rest as they patrol on a hilltop in Panjshir province on September 1,2021. Panjshir remains the last major holdout of anti-Taliban forces led by Ahmad Massoud, son of the famed mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. AFP

The UAE sends a plane carrying urgent medical and food aid to Afghanistan, as part of its contribution to provide the basic and necessary needs of thousands of Afghan families, especially the most vulnerable groups such as women, children and the elderly, September 3, 2021. Wam

Afghan women's rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul on September 3, 2021. Reuters

The main money exchange market in Kabul reopens on September 4, 10 days after the Taliban takeover. Currency dealers have been hit hard by the fall in value of the Afghani currency. EPA

Passengers board a plane as domestic flights resume across Afghanistan, at Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport in Kandahar on September 5, 2021. EPA

Protesters reflected in the sunglasses of a demonstrator during a rally in support of Afghanistan's people after the takeover of the country by the Taliban, at the Place de la Republique, in Paris on September 5, 2021. AFP

A Taliban fighter stands guard at a market in Kabul on September 5, 2021. AFP

A suspected ISIS member sits blindfolded in a Taliban Special Forces' car in Kabul on September 5, 2021. Reuters

Children stand outside the former US embassy in Kabul where the banner of the 'Islamic Emirate' has replaced previous murals, on September 8, 2021. Stefanie Glinski for The National

A veiled student speaks to a gathering of female students before a pro-Taliban rally at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take a selfie after they stormed and overran the home of the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. on September 11, 2021. AFP

Members of Afghanistan's national girls football team arrive at the Pakistan Football Federation in Lahore on September 15, 2021, a month after the hardline Taliban swept back into power. AFP

Afghan students separated by a partition attend a class at Mirwais Neeka University in Kandahar on September 20, 2021. The Taliban had officially announced the segregation of male and female students in all government and private universities. EPA

A young girl from Afghanistan hides under a truck carrying fruit and vegetables as she attempts to smuggle herself over the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan on September 12, 2021. Everyday dozens of children from Afghanistan smuggle themselves over the border into Pakistan to sell Paan and other goods before smuggling themselves back again. At least one child is injured each day trying to cross the border like this. Oliver Marsden for The National

Afghan girls at a school in Kandahar on September 26, 2021. AFP

Afghans gather outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, in Kabul, October 6, 2021. Reuters

Sohail Ahmadi, an Afghan baby boy who went missing during the disordered evacuation process in Kabul after the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, is reunited with his grandfather and aunt on January 10, 2022. EPA

Zakia, an economics student who dropped out of university after the Taliban took power, at her home on the outskirts of Kabul on January 24, 2022. AFP

A burqa-clad woman walks along a street in Kabul on May 7, 2022. The Taliban had just imposed some of the harshest restrictions on Afghanistan's women since they seized power, ordering them to cover fully in public, ideally with the traditional burqa. AFP

An Afghan vendor displays a burqa at his shop at Mandawi market in Kabul on May 8, 2022. AFP

Khatira Ahmadi (L) and Tehmina (R), Afghan presenters at Tolo TV, read news at the studio in Kabul on May 23. Female television presenters and reporters in Afghanistan appeared with their faces covered to comply with a mandate issued by the Taliban. EPA

Afghan women prisoners in Kandahar on July 26. EPA

On August 19, Afghanistan's Independence Day, his restaurants reopened to little fanfare. No more than 10 or 15 people showed up between both establishments on that day, he says.

Most of his clientele, well-to-do younger Afghans — journalists, aid workers, embassy staff, mid to high-level government officials, influencers, entrepreneurs and photographers — had already left by that point or were too busy looking for ways leave to make time for a shisha or a coffee.

In fact, it took more than three months for customers to return properly. And it was not until the early winter months that families began to get in their cars and go out for a pizza or kebabs. By that time, Mr Jalili had had to cut his staff by half to 60.

“They call me every day, asking when they can return to work, and it breaks my heart. Each one of them provided for an entire family of five or six other people,” he says.

But slowly, life in Kabul started to return to some semblance of normality, and those families who were not immediately affected by the sanctions and aid cutbacks imposed on the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate were looking for any form of entertainment.

If you lock yourself in your house for 20, 30 days, you’re no different from a prisoner and the people of Afghanistan refuse to be caged once again

“People needed a change of scenery. If you lock yourself in your house for 20, 30 days, you’re no different from a prisoner, and the people of Afghanistan refuse to be caged once again,” Mr Jalili says of the people who started to return to his restaurants, including young men and women.

In the spring, the Taliban dealt a blow to the social lives of Afghan families when they ordered that public parks must be gender-segregated, with men and women going on separate days.

An entire family could no longer enjoy Kabul’s few green spaces at the same time.

Even at home, with electricity cuts and poor internet connections, people have limited options for entertainment. Most of the Afghan and Turkish entertainment shows that families used to watch every night have been taken off-air.

“There’s not much else to do in Kabul other than go to a restaurant,” Mr Jalili says.

“People who used to come once a week, now scrape together what money they can to come once or twice a month.”

That is why he is one of the few Afghan entrepreneurs looking for new ventures. On his list are a new entertainment centre in the capital and possibly a restaurant in the central province of Bamiyan, which has become popular with families and young people in recent months.

Mr Jalili understands the fears of other Afghan entrepreneurs he has spoken to.

They worry that if international sanctions on dealing with the Taliban are not lifted and Afghanistan does not become part of the global financial system again, they will not be able to continue to do business.

There is the anxiety that the Taliban’s government will never be internationally recognised, which would deal a further blow to the struggling economy.

He says the Taliban, who are desperate to restart the sanctions-hit economy, have been supportive of and encouraging to Afghan investors at home and abroad, but for many of his peers the fears are still too strong.

Last week, he sat in the sports lounge with an official from the Afghan Central Bank to discuss plans for jump-starting the economy.

Despite the many concerns, Mr Jalili feels now is the time for local entrepreneurs to engage with the local economy, because the Afghan people should not have to suffer because of the government.

“‘We have to do something. It’s our nation. We have to take our investments and bring them to our own country,” he says.