In the days leading up to the eve of the first anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, security has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds in the capital Kabul.
“The security this year is like never before,” says Ghulam Sakhi Shahqol, chairman of the board of trustees for the Abul Fazl shrine, a Shiite mosque in Kabul’s old city neighbourhood of Murad Khani.
Standing a few metres outside the shrine’s entrance, surrounded by a unit of Taliban militants-turned-police officers carrying assault rifles, Mr Shahqol was speaking to The National three days before the Shiite holiday of Ashura.
At the same spot 11 Ashuras ago, a suicide bomber killed 50 people from the mosque's congregation. The attack was claimed by Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, a Pakistan-based anti-Shiite terrorist group whose fighters at the time had friendly ties with the Taliban, but now find common cause with ISKP — the Afghan offshoot of ISIS.
The Taliban police unit posted at the shrine have blocked off the avenue that is the main entrance to Murad Khani with a combination of “caution” tape, concrete barriers and barbed wire. At the foot of the street, two officers man machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks. They are there to prevent a repeat attack, by ISKP or any number of other terrorist groups that still operate in the cities, villages and valleys that straddle Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The checkpoint commander, a stocky Taliban soldier wearing tactical gear no doubt abandoned by the US military, casually refers to threats from “foreigners” — the Taliban’s new euphemism for these groups. The Taliban’s victory has changed its mindset; as the governing power, it now stands apart from them.
Kabul’s Shiites once feared the Taliban. Now, along with the rest of the city’s residents, they must live with them and try to arrive at some sort of modus vivendi. For civilians, this means acquiescing to Taliban authority, but also finding the courage to be assertive where possible. This year, Kabul’s Shiites marked Ashura on August 10 with a boldness unseen since the early years of the republic. Throughout Kabul — not only majority-Shiite neighbourhoods — thousands of traditional green and red flags were hoisted on to lamp posts, and a large sign bearing the words “Ya Hussein” was planted into the side of a mountain overlooking the city.
For the Taliban, the modus vivendi has involved easing up on the sectarian rhetoric and harsh tactics, including public beatings for minor social infractions, that alienated the public and the international community.
“We are all Muslims, and that is the most important thing now, so we have to put effort into building trust,” Mr Shahqol says.
One year under Taliban rule — in pictures
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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
In the past two weeks, those efforts have been tested repeatedly. Many security incidents and a lack of transparency from the Taliban have raised the sense of uncertainty Afghans have regarding their future.
On July 31, just after sunrise, Kabulis in the wealthy (and heavily monitored) neighbourhood of Sherpur woke up to the sound of a Hellfire missile slamming into a mansion. For nearly two days, the Taliban government kept silent — saying only that it was investigating what happened and that no one had been killed.
It was only on Tuesday morning that Afghans learnt from a televised address by US President Joe Biden that the missile was American, and that someone was successfully killed. It was the world’s most-wanted terrorist, Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri — a foreigner, although one who was presumably being sheltered by the Taliban. Perhaps, some Kabulis thought, the Taliban does not stand as far apart as it likes to think.
The Taliban have also had to learn that almost no amount of security can adequately shield a city as large as Kabul from the spectre of terrorism.
On August 3, Taliban police officers on the other side of the city were conducting door-to-door searches, looking for the “foreigners”. Two days earlier, in the neighbourhood of Karte Sakhi, a female police officer had been killed in a shoot-out with suspected ISKP militants.
At a checkpoint at the entrance to Dashte Barchi, a sprawling, predominantly Shiite neighbourhood, another female police officer, Begum, was searching incoming minibuses for suspicious passengers. She is unique among the six female officers in her unit because she is herself is a Shiite from Dashte Barchi. She joined the Afghan National Police under the previous government, graduating from the police academy only one month before the Taliban came to power.
The Taliban had initially sent female officers home, but quickly realised they could not do without them entirely. Begum was among the few invited to keep their jobs. She is proud of her work, she says, and of the role her colleagues play in keeping her community safe.
policewoman from Dashte Barchi
“The neighbourhood is much safer than it was during the republic,” she told The National. “It’s not really even a comparison.”
Two hours later, less than 500 metres from Begum’s checkpoint, a bomb exploded. It had been hidden in a planter on the side of the road. Eight people were killed and 22 injured.
In the days preceding Ashura, a spate of bombings primarily attacking Shiites rocked the capital. The bombs were thought to be improvised explosive devices, usually activated by a mobile phone, of the kind commonly used by the Taliban in its war against the US occupation. On Ashura itself, the Taliban shut down telecommunications networks across Kabul in an attempt to disrupt any further IED detonations. No attacks were reported that day.
The Taliban credits much of its counterterrorism effort to its nascent but already much-feared intelligence agency. And although many Taliban law enforcement officials now wear uniforms, plainclothes agents still walk the streets of Kabul, looking not only for terrorists, but also anyone who might be doing anything perceived as undermining the Taliban’s authority.
The consequences of an encounter with them varies unpredictably. The National’s reporter was followed and subsequently questioned by men claiming to be intelligence agents one morning in Sherpur. It was, overall, a polite interaction. But encounters by other Afghans, recounted to The National but the details of which are withheld for their own safety, have been far more violent.
Kabul resident
Farid, a Dashte Barchi resident working for a local production company, is also incensed by the Taliban’s reliance on plainclothes law enforcement. “Here, like everywhere else in Afghanistan, if we’re being really honest, we still have a lot of crime," he said. "With the bad economic situation, it is only getting worse — all the more so when you can’t tell who is a Talib and who is a thug pretending to be a Talib.”
After Ashura, the days leading up to the anniversary of Taliban rule did not grow any less tense. The near-daily bombings continued. One device, strapped to a motorcycle, killed four people, including two Taliban officers. Another, an IED said to have been hidden in a prosthetic leg, killed a prominent cleric, Rahimullah Haqqani.
Haqqani’s killing, claimed by ISKP, seems a perfect illustration of how complex Kabul’s militant-led politics have become. Although, like his assassins, he was well-known for his occasional screeds against Shiites, he was also a prominent supporter of the Taliban. At the same time, he joined other clerics in lobbying for girls’ education — a right currently taken away because of what Taliban officials say are “religious sensitivities” within the group.
On Saturday, a group of Afghan women took to Kabul’s streets to protest against, among other things, the continued closure of girls’ schools. Taliban officers — a mix of uniformed police and plainclothes intelligence agents — dispersed them by firing live rounds into the air. Several people were detained afterwards, once again raising fears that the Taliban’s careful attempts to govern without alienating the public would prove short-lived.
Shortly before departing Kabul, The National asked a waiter at a local cafe, a Shiite from the country’s historically persecuted Hazara community, for his thoughts on the country’s future.
“It’s not safe to speak here,” he said. “I don’t know who’s listening, and I don’t know what will get me into trouble.”
