The Taliban are everywhere and the bandits have disappeared. But in the city the new order takes us back to the Middle Ages. Don’t believe anything they say, says a social worker
FROM OUR REPORT TO KABUL – GThe boots do not have the open laces at the top, classic of militias all over the world. But they are tight above the ankle and pick up the camouflage pants. I’m from Badri, the best Taliban brigade. Beware of documents. Nobody speaks Englishsays Faruk, my Hazara driver. With us on board is also Mohammadot, a Tajik. If they find me, they do like my cousin, who yesterday sent him by force to collect the corpses of the Taliban soldiers who fell high in the mountains of Panshir, he says worried. And he makes his usual movement of difficult moments: he puts his head in the neck, lowers the pacol on his forehead and tries to make himself invisible. They search the car in front of us carefully, they open the trunk. Not aggressive, but tough, inflexible. They talk to each other with walkie talkies and make signals with infrared light bulbs. At the last we are lucky. On the other lane a car does not stop at a halt. They run after her, removing the safety from the machine guns. The other guards are distracted, they barely check on us. They don’t ask for anything.
It happened last night in Kabul. We got there by passing through Pakistan through the Khyber Pass and immediately a consideration became evident, which found confirmation at the end of the day in the capital. With the Taliban victory, the problems relating to terrorist attacks, which were by now on the agenda, are eliminated, at least for now. And it seems that banditry is also decreasing, which was previously linked to the political and social destabilization generated by the Taliban guerrilla since 2006. These almost 200 kilometers of narrow road, which pass through the Sarobi gorges, reach the plain of Jalalabad and finally they climb towards the dramatically barren mountains that lead into the Pakistani tribal regions, in recent years they had become the nightmare of every driver. Robberies and kidnappings were the order of the day. Not anymore. The Taliban are consolidating. A week ago they only had five checkpoints. Now they have become more than twenty. I don’t envy the bandits who fall into their hands. Executions on the spot are becoming frequent. Result: you travel safesaid Mustaf, a truck driver who travels regularly on the region’s main traffic route between Karachi and Kabul. In the capital the confirmations jump to the eyes. For at least five years Faruk had avoided traveling beyond a radius of 20 or 30 kilometers from the center. Now he says he is ready to travel the 600 kilometers leading to Kandahar.
But this security is the only point in favor of the Taliban. Everything else a catastrophe. The economy slips into disaster. There is no cash, people try not to go to work, there is a lack of administrators to make it work, public offices are closed, the whole country blocked. There is nothing left for the Taliban to return to war and show their true face. Don’t believe anything they say, he says Shaima, a 44-year-old social worker from Kunduz in the North. His is the drama of all those who worked in social betterment projects sponsored by the Western coalition. She was in the Women for Afghan Women (Waw), a US-funded non-governmental organization aimed at creating shelters for persecuted women, often beaten at home, threatened by their husbands and families. We looked after 15 women and 25 children. But when the Taliban arrived we had to flee. They came home to arrest me. It had already happened in 2016, when they had conquered Kunduz for the first time. We had moved to Mazar-i-Sharif, and then ended up here in Kabul. Now all such reception centers in the country have been closed, we alone had 14 with a thousand guests. The women have all gone away, left on their own, he adds. She and her family found refuge with distant relatives here in a village on the outskirts of the capital. Her husband returned to their home in Kunduz two days ago to retrieve some clothes. They remain hidden: they took care of women and moreover paid by the US, the worst of the worst in the eyes of the new masters.
It is late in the evening when we return to the street. Sharenau’s restaurants are mostly open. Long time owners of were prepared with generators. But the colored lights of the signs must not be misleading. At this time of summer, the streets of the center would be crowded with people. Now there is hardly anyonesays Omar, who runs a kind of local Wimpy famous for fruit and vegetable juices. His tables are empty. Not even a woman is seen, not even with a burka. Until a few days ago, the nearby public park was still overrun by refugee camps who fled at the beginning of August in the face of the Taliban advance in the north. Many have returned home. A few families still bivouac under the trees and send their children to beg on the road.
September 6, 2021 (change September 6, 2021 | 23:09)
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