The Taliban emirate decreed late Sunday that Monday is a public holiday throughout Afghanistan. They celebrate taking the country almost a year ago when their troops stormed the presidential palace in Kabul without resistance. President Ashraf Ghani fled the site in a helicopter shortly before. In doing so, she staged the delivery of the country on a silver platter to the rebels. But this Monday, the Afghan capital of four million looks practically a normal working day were it not for the constant caravan parades with the Taliban celebrating the first day of victory in their second takeover. The previous one covered the years 1996 to 2001.
As if it were a pilgrimage, several hundred people cried out to Allah and congratulated each other on Monday as police cars, motorcycles, bicycles and even armored vehicles inherited from the US Army drove through various streets and neighborhoods of the capital. The Taliban are in their best attire according to the date given. That’s what those carrying civilians do because the military is marching with all their paraphernalia. In the traffic chaos, children and adults wave black and white flags of the emirate, which are given to them at the corners. Miraculously no one gets run over.
A Taliban takes his son, also disguised as a soldier, to the celebrations in Kabul. Louis Vega
The obsession with security
The mantra that has possessed the Taliban is that of security. They relentlessly repeat it in every statement, every statement, every interview, every tweet… “Afghanistan has been a peaceful country for a year.” The reality is very different: the violence continues in the streets. At the same time, the country continues to face a very serious humanitarian and economic crisis, aggravated by violations of human rights, especially women’s rights, by the Islamic Emirate authorities.
With the fundamentalists in power, an important part of the attacks and bombings that dominated the country’s daily routine up until a year ago are no longer taking place. The Taliban were the main instigators and protagonists of this violence, while they are now the ones holding the reins of power. That’s why there are people inside and outside of Kabul who say they feel safer and that traveling is more peaceful. But the Taliban are now trying their own medicine from the government: attacks and attacks from those they don’t want on the front lines, like the Islamic State group (ISIS, its English acronym) terrorists.
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A man in the midst of the Taliban’s celebration of the seizure of power. Louis Vega
The American embassy headquarters is the symbol of the defeat inflicted by the jihadist guerrillas on foreign troops who have protected various local governments for 20 years. In the morning, when the Taliban think the crowds are excessive, they start clearing the roundabout. Both guerrilla and neighbor together, distracted in the celebrations, are a tasty treat for the ISIS cells. These enemies of the emirate have repeatedly attacked the city in recent weeks, causing more than a hundred deaths, according to the UN. Last Friday, they dealt a serious blow to the Taliban by assassinating prominent religious leader Rahimullah Haqqani in a suicide bomber attack.
Taliban supporters with Islamic Emirates flag. Louis Vega
Women hardly take part in the celebration. Flashing only her eyes from the black clothing that covers her entire body, young Kali photographs young Kali with her partner Salman, who is holding two Taliban flags. A bearded man, part of one of the security checkpoints, takes a picture of them. The couple is Pakistani: Both are studying medicine in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, but were caught in the capital on August 15. Pakistan, the eastern neighbor, has always been a solid pillar on which the Afghan Taliban rest.
Very close to the couple, about 200 meters away, is the epicenter of the Islamist cavalcade: the main entrance to the diplomatic mission that Washington has occupied in Kabul. The revelry of insults to “America” has lingered outside the huge walls protecting vacant facilities since August of last year. The Taliban screamed incessantly while raising their weapons in the sky, without firing any shots in the air at the time.
In any case, the conference had a rather low institutional profile. “Today is the day of the victory of truth over lies and the day of salvation and freedom for the Afghan nation,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement. In an appearance organized early in the afternoon, Foreign Minister Amir Jan Muttaqi assured that the emirate has achieved security never achieved under United States command. “We want to have good relations with all countries, we will not allow the territory of Afghanistan to be used against anyone,” he said, according to Portal agency.
The minister has also launched a petition to the world to recognize the Islamic Emirate. “The international community must work with Afghanistan and the new government. To prevent the misery of the last 40 years that nobody could stop, not to repeat it again. Here every remedy has failed,” Muttaqi said in a statement collected by the Tolo News chain.
Washington ordered the country’s invasion in 2001 due to the Taliban’s collusion with Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, days after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He spread his tentacles through rural Afghanistan, committing attacks and attacks the whole country; The Taliban managed to take complete control of the country last year, taking advantage of international disorder and the capitulation of the local army.
The vast majority of Afghans, absorbed in concerns as mundane as finding food or work, feel alienated from parades like Monday’s. At 19, Omar, a Taliban with a beard that is still not very bushy by local taste, is nonetheless proud: “Every country has a special day and that day is Afghanistan; the day we defeated the first power in the world”. Around him, a procession of dirty boys carry raffia sacks on their backs into which they stuff all the plastic they see on the street while reaching out in search of a handout: “One dollar, sir. one dollar”.
Taliban celebrate August 15 anniversary of taking Kabul and establishing Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan Ebrahim Noroozi (AP)
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