Taliban celebrates victory as Afghans face bank runs and food shortages

Afghanistan updates

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As Taliban fighters celebrated the departure of US troops from Afghanistan, Aalia, a 40-year-old highschool instructor, was outdoors a financial institution making an attempt to get money to purchase groceries.

Banks have been largely closed for the reason that Taliban marched into Kabul greater than two weeks in the past. The few branches which have reopened have imposed strict withdrawal limits, resulting in day-long queues and disruptions to the cash-dependent financial system.

“Since 6am, I’ve been standing right here within the queue,” Aalia instructed the Monetary Occasions after Kabul’s evening skies have been pierced by Taliban fighters’ celebratory gunfire. “I’ve nothing left in my home and my kitchen.”

Aalia’s disaster mirrored the disconnect between Taliban leaders’ euphoria on the US exit and the grave problem they face in transitioning from an Islamist insurgency to a functioning administration.

Elite Taliban items geared up with high-end fight gear that analysts mentioned was in all probability seized from the surrendering Afghan Nationwide Military swiftly took management of Kabul airport after the final Individuals flew out. Anas Haqqani, scion of a distinguished militant household aligned with the Taliban, instructed a neighborhood journalist the nation had “achieved a freedom that has no precedent prior to now”.

Many Afghan civilians have been relieved that Kabul fell to the Taliban with out first changing into a battleground, expressing hopes that the US departure would herald an finish to the combating and violence that has beset the nation for 20 years.

“I used to be very fearful that there could be clashes and looting,” a cheese vendor in a residential neighbourhood mentioned. “I used to be very glad that the Taliban got here peacefully, there hasn’t been a conflict they usually prevented anarchy within the metropolis.”

But bizarre Afghans have been additionally sceptical that the Taliban had the talents to deal with the nation’s complicated socio-economic issues. Others have been anxious about dropping hard-won freedoms, particularly for ladies, who have been confined to their properties below a strict Islamic regime when the motion final held energy from 1996-2001.

“The information of the Individuals makes me glad — it’s good that the battle ends,” Aalia mentioned. “However it’s also vital to work. It’s good to permit ladies [to work] as earlier than . . . the federal government should take note of salaries that haven’t been paid in months. They need to pay critical consideration to the financial state of affairs . . . the Taliban mustn’t rent a mullah for the ministries of financial system, finance and public well being.”

Closely armed Taliban fighters parading on Kabul’s streets on Tuesday have been jubilant, as their leaders celebrated what they referred to as Afghanistan’s “independence-day”.

But these related to the previous Afghan authorities who weren’t evacuated within the chaotic US airlift have been left residing in terror. Many have been in hiding or shifting from home to deal with because the Taliban looked for members of the previous safety companies and forces.

“There’s very clearly an inventory of those who they’re going after — they will folks’s homes, speaking to their households and making an attempt to trace them down,” mentioned Rudra Chaudhuri, a professor on the Division of Battle Research at King’s Faculty London.

The Taliban has but to announce the contours of the brand new authorities, though the group was believed to have reached an settlement after a three-day assembly in Kandahar with their supreme chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Analysts believed the method of forming an administration had been delayed by tensions between the group’s varied regional factions over dividing duties.

However Asadullah Waheedi, an assistant professor at Kabul College and skilled on the Taliban, mentioned the motion’s leaders have been additionally debating whether or not they may embody non-Taliban politicians with a view to create the “inclusive administration” sought by the worldwide group.

“The principle sizzling dialogue proper now within the Taliban management is, ‘Are we allowed below sharia to share energy with these from the corrupt former authorities’,” Waheedi mentioned.

The Taliban is making an attempt to encourage some return to normality even because it considers how one can reshape Afghan society. The Islamists have mounted a social media offensive, disseminating peaceable scenes and a senior Talib kissing a child. Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson, has urged worldwide traders to return to Afghanistan to rebuild the financial system and referred to as on businesspeople to assist the nation overcome its financial disaster.

Major colleges have reopened for youthful college students, together with women, after the Taliban agreed that youngsters’s and lecturers’ uniforms accorded with Islamic rules. Older college students haven’t but been permitted to return.

The group has changed the previous authorities’s tricolour flag with its personal, which is white with the Muslim declaration of religion, or shadah, inscribed in black letters.

However for a lot of bizarre Afghans, the overriding fixation remained how one can entry money to purchase necessities. “We are able to conform to every little thing,” mentioned one man watching the flags being taken down, “if solely the banks would open.”