In five years, what have the Taliban done to Afghanistan?

Revisiting Kabul, I found young hope and broken promises

An Afghan schoolgirl holds her father’s hand as they leave, after taking a midterm exam at a primary school in Kabul. Photo by AFP via Getty Images

I have finally made it back to Kabul. It’s been three years since I was last here, having been delayed by Taliban visa obstacles, or diverted to other crises in our crisis-ridden world. My first stop when I step into the Kabul sunshine is the obligatory selfie at that expression of municipal affection you see in cities the world over – but the “I Love Kabul” sign has been replaced by a much longer “I Love Afghanistan”. I take quiet credit that some kind of love is still in the air. In those chaotic days after 15 August 2021, when Taliban fighters swept into the city, the I Love Kabul sign was ripped away, along with so much else. My post on social media was spotted by an adviser to one of the Taliban leaders. He ordered the sign’s return.

In the lion’s den

Far bigger promises were smashed – above all the Taliban’s pledge to let girls go to school and women study at university. Seeking answers about why this hasn’t happened, we head south to Kandahar, the real seat of power, where the Taliban’s ultra-conservative, reclusive emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued hundreds of edicts. His orders are said to be absolute. “What happened?” I ask the chief spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, of the pledge. I remind him that during his first news conference after their victory, he had promised: “We are going to allow women to work and study.”

He falls back on their usual response that those responsible for this issue “are working on it”. Why is it taking so long? He also points out that women work “where there is a need for them and where Islam permits it”. We did see some women working at the airport, in hospitals, and they’re still active in the private sector if the right conditions, including the separation of men and women, are in place.

What he can’t say, as a founding member of the Taliban once told me, is that a large majority of members disagree with the edicts that bar girls and women from education and many jobs. When we drive out of Kandahar, where hardscrabble villages are hammered by climate shocks and cuts in foreign aid, a tribal elder makes clear they want schools in their area for girls. He adds: “I mean more than high school. We want women to be educated as doctors and teachers too.”

Afghanistan’s bitter lake

The foreign ministry compound in Kabul is a world apart. Behind high blast walls, it’s an elegant landscape of manicured lawns and exquisite buildings dating back to the 19th century. I remember how we used to traipse in and out of the graceful Stor Palace for press briefings when Kabul was under Soviet occupation and isolated from Western countries who shut their embassies in the Cold War winter of 1989.

How the wheel of history turns. Now Russia is the only country to recognise Taliban rule formally, and most Western embassies are shuttered – although the EU mission is open, along with Japan’s. China, India and the Central Asian states are here too – amounting to de facto recognition.

We meet the foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who lists off the Taliban’s achievements and shares videos of himself travelling through Kabul on a motorcycle – in contrast with the armoured convoys of the last government, which caused gridlock. Never mind that it was the threat of Taliban attacks that often paralysed life. He admits it would be “a real problem” if Afghanistan becomes a country without women teachers, doctors and more. He tells me they’re working on it – and insists what he calls an “internal issue” should not block a better relationship with the West.

Too long to wait

Five years is an achingly long time for Afghan schoolgirls. We meet some still studying at secret schools, online in their homes, or at Islamic madrasas now teaching more than religious subjects. Some are learning new skills, such as making jam or jewellery, while they wait for the day that maybe, just maybe, schools might open. A precocious 13-year-old bursts into laughter when I ask whether she’d be happy if she ended up being a jewellery-maker. “No,” she exclaims. “A doctor is much better than a jewellery-maker!”

Another teenager tells me in excellent English: “You interviewed my father five years ago.” He had worked in the British Embassy as a contractor, but London had allowed only its staff to board planes out of Kabul in those fateful days of August 2021. As we sit in a dark room in a secret school, I can’t help but think: she could have been studying in a British classroom. She sobs uncontrollably at the end of our interview.

Lyse Doucet is chief international correspondent for the BBC. Her book The Finest Hotel in Kabul (Cornerstone) is out in paperback now

[Further reading: As the Taliban erases Afghan women, the world looks away]