2021 - The fall of Kabul

KABUL: During the hot summer of 2021, a deep sense of eeriness, and at the same time optimism, hung over Afghanistan as one city and province after another fell to the Taliban ahead of the imminent full withdrawal of US-led troops.

Those weeks were a microcosm reflecting much of the experience of the 20 years following the US invasion of a country that had already suffered a bloody, decade-long occupation by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and between 1838 and 1939 endured a series of conflicts with the British Empire.

On Feb. 29, 2020, the Taliban signed the Doha Accord, a peace agreement with a US administration determined to end to America’s longest war, which began in 2001 in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda.

As part of the deal — officially known as the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America” — Washington agreed to dramatically reduce the number of US forces in the country ahead of a complete withdrawal within 14 months.

It immediately became apparent, however, that without US air and ground support, Afghan government forces could not cope with the sudden surge in Taliban attacks that followed the signing of the agreement.

Even the Taliban were stunned by the speed of their victories in 2001, which by Aug. 15 had brought them to the gates of Kabul.

The fall of the city had been predicted a year earlier by Mariam Koofi, a member of the Afghan parliament, while the talks between Taliban delegates and US diplomats were still in full swing in Doha.

“I fear that we would see the Taliban on the streets of Kabul one day when you get up from your bed,” Koofi told me.

Her assessment was based on a number of factors, including corruption within the government, rising numbers of deaths among Afghan troops, power struggles between state and non-state actors, the growing push for a US withdrawal by regional rivals such as Iran, Russia and China, and the decline in vital American military and logistical aid to the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

On Aug. 15, 2021, Koofi’s prediction came to pass. As news spread that Ghani and members of his government had fled by helicopter to Central Asia, and US and other Western diplomats had abandoned their embassies in panic, Taliban fighters entered Kabul and captured the presidential palace.

In some parts of the city, large crowds gathered on the streets, some in fear, some to welcome their new rulers. Others were merely curious to see them for the first time, because they were born during the US occupation and so had not experienced the first rule of the Taliban, which was cut short by the American-led invasion in 2001.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, 20 years of war in Afghanistan claimed the lives of more than 168,000 Afghans, including 69,000 members of the national police and military, and 46,000 civilians.

Despite the loss of more than 6,000 American lives and after spending trillions of dollars on the conflict, the US had handed power back to the very group it drove out 20 years earlier.

In the center of Kabul, banks and businesses closed, fearing looting, but the Taliban swiftly managed to stop any threat of plundering. The group also quickly announced the reestablishment of its Islamic Emirate, rather than the formation of a broad-based government as agreed in the Doha deal.

At Kabul airport, diplomats, some of their local employees and foreign aid workers were flown out of the country on US and other foreign military aircraft.

Fearful for the future of Afghanistan under Taliban rule and the return of civil war, tens of thousands of residents mobbed the airport amid false rumors that aircraft were waiting to transport Afghans who wanted to leave the country.

As evening approached, a human tide broke through barriers and flooded onto the runway. In chaotic scenes, broadcast around the world, some desperate people tried to cling to aircraft as they took off. On Aug. 16, a young dentist fell to his death from a plane, his remains found on a rooftop four miles from the airport. A teenage soccer player similarly died after plummeting from a US aircraft.

In the days that followed, the Taliban, who had promised to be more lenient and inclusive than they had been during their previous rule, began imposing curbs and draconian policies. Billboards depicting women were defaced or torn down, Afghan flags were lowered, cafes stopped playing music, and a few restaurants run by women were closed. Demonstrations by women protesting against the Taliban’s actions were suppressed.

On Aug. 26, a suicide bomber, later identified as a member of Daesh, killed 170 Afghans and 13 US troops at the airport. Five days later, on Aug. 31, the US completed its full withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Since then, the Taliban have continued to impose tough restrictions, particularly on women, who are barred from education above grade 6, attending university, and most public jobs. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled the country, seeing no future there.

Meanwhile, the Taliban government faces ever-deepening international isolation, signs of internal divisions, and growing local frustration with its fundamentalist policies.

In addition, Afghanistan might not yet be free of foreign intervention. Although the policy of the new US administration toward the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is not yet entirely clear, on Feb. 1, President Donald Trump repeated a preelection threat that America would reclaim Bagram Airbase.

• Sayed Salahuddin is an Afghan journalist based in Canada who covered the rise of the Taliban in 1996, the US invasion and the fall of Kabul in 2021.