Chaos and Uncertainty in Afghanistan

 

"There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country."

"Our ulema [religious scholars] will decide whether girl are allowed to go to school or not."

Waheedullah Hashimi, Taliban official

"I can manage [to go to the airport] as long as they let me get into a U.K. plane."

"I can't risk my life going there and then coming back. I won't have another chance."

senior Afghan official

Three people were shot dead by Taliban following protests in three cities where Taliban flags were pulled down and the Afghan national flag was raised in defiance. According to witnesses at the scene over a dozen people were wounded as Taliban dispersed a protest in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan. Dissent will clearly not be tolerated by the newly restored Islanic Emirate of Afghanistan. Oh, and the solemn promise to the international community that the Taliban would exact no reprisals and a general amnesty would be in order always had a distinctive whiff of deceit.

 

Women and children sitting on the tarmac at the airport in Kabul on Monday.  Credit...Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A man identifying himself only as Wahid in Jalalabad described the incident when protesters replaced the flag of the Taliban with the Afghan national tricolour close to the city's Pashtunistan square. "Living is not possible any more. These youngsters here, I understand they hate the Taliban but changing the flag has caused trouble for all of us in Jalalabad. One of our dear men was killed."

"They can shoot me, I will die for this flag", one young man shouted, as he carried the national flag. The eastern cities of Khost and Asadabad saw protesters gathered and taking down the white flag of the Taliban emblazoned with black Islamic scripture to replace it with the black, red and green banner of the Afghan Republic. Women appeared on the streets of Kabul demanding their rights be respected by the Taliban. Who had, after all, speaking to the foreign press, assured they were prepared to respect women's rights, under the strictures of sharia law.

A presenter for Afghan TV station RTA who had taken her place as usual in the previous two days, was prevented by Taliban members from entering her office more recently. All of this as Taliban spokesmen assured the foreign press that they had no intention of returning to the ways and means of their previous government installment in the 1990s, a time when public floggings and beheadings were carried out routinely as a measure of maintaining public order.

As for the recently unseated Ashraf Ghani now in the United Arab Emirates, President Ghani has issued an assurance that he intends to return to Afghanistan "so that I can continue my efforts for justice for Afghans". On the streets of Kabul, Taliban fanatics launched search parties looking to unearth the presence of government officials and journalists, while at the international airport Western government representatives are frantically attempting to evacuate their nationals, along with Afghans who had worked with their troops and diplomatic missions.

One day after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, thousands of people who were desperate to flee the country rushed to the airport in Kabul. Credit...Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The roads leading to the airport are locked in gridlock. Passage is in the hands of the Taliban manning checkpoints. Unless people can make their way through Taliban sentries to the airport, no one will depart the country. Desperate people have taken to attempts at tunneling under or alternately climbing over fences. The Netherlands pointed out that Dutch embassy staff, translators and family members were refused entry into the airport by U.S. troops and as a result missed their evacuation flight. 

 

To maintain 'order', Taliban fired shots into the air, using whips to disperse the crowds gathered close to the airfield's main entrance. The Taliban checkpoints effectively controlling access to the airport, complicating plans to rescue people remaining hidden in the city. The U.S. State Department issued a statement that American embassy personnel had been evacuated to the airport, where the U.S. military was protecting them.

For the thousands of others desperate for refuge from the Taliban's Islamic Emirate, escape attempts appear futile. As one international employee working for a humanitarian group who had attempted to find a way to the airport and access to an outbound flight explained the situation, he was informed no one could exit the country at this point, absent permission from the new government in power.

A U.S. soldier confronting people at the international airport in Kabul on Monday.  Credit...Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

"The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on the agreement to draw down our forces, or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat and lurching into the third decade of conflict."

"Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country [after two decades of U.S. training and hundreds of billions of dollars in equipment and resources]."

"If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision."

U.S. President Joe Biden

Afghans waiting at the Kabul airport on Monday.   Credit...Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images