As the Taliban continues to reshape Kabul, some here are beginning to wonder if the city has also begun to reshape the Taliban.
“They have changed in many ways,” said Abdul Rahman Rahmani, 50, a former fighter who helped the Taliban invade Kabul in 1996 and again in 2021, speaking during a recent visit to the Kabul Zoo to see the lions.
Some Taliban fighters now regret the material success they sacrificed to wage their armed campaign. Rahmani remembers that another Taliban soldier told him just days before that he was sad because he and his brother had left their studies. He told Rahmani: “If we had studied, we would be sitting in offices now.”
There are no signs that these changes have led to an easing of the Taliban's repressive policies, especially the campaign against women's rights. To be sure, for many of the fighters who rushed to the Afghan capital in 2021 on the backs of pickup trucks, this city of about 5 million people represents a disappointment. They say urban life has become lonelier, more stressful and less religious than they imagined.
Some Taliban fighters grew up here before leaving for rural Afghanistan to join the insurgency. Others never left and supported the Taliban as informants. But for most of the men who controlled the Afghan capital, the city's bright lights were unfamiliar, and Kabul presented a challenge full of temptations.
Land Cruiser cars and computer lessons
Rahmani dreams that Kabul will one day become the Afghan equivalent of Dubai, the attractive commercial center of the United Arab Emirates. He added: “Once the economic problems are solved, things will change dramatically.”
Some Taliban members have already begun to develop a taste for expensive things. Sellers say that while officials in the new government initially shopped for motorcycles, they are now increasingly interested in gleaming Land Cruisers.
It seems that life in the city has already taken its toll on Taliban soldier Abdul Mubin Mansour, 19, and his comrades. They agree that reliable access to the Internet, for example, is increasingly important to them.
They say they have become addicted to many TV series that are best consumed in high definition. Their favorites are the Turkish crime drama Valley of the Wolves and Jumong, a South Korean historical series about a prince who must conquer remote lands.
Mansour said he still prefers the countryside, where he may eventually return. “But I very much hope that there will be electricity and other modern facilities by then,” he added.
Some soldiers, like Husam Khan, 35, say they cannot imagine having to return. Khan said he initially had difficulty adjusting to the city. He said he felt like the people of Kabul were afraid of him, and his eyes hurt when he stared at the computer for too long. But access to electricity, water, English lessons, and computer science classes changed his mind. “I love this life,” he said.
Some Afghans who opposed the Taliban takeover say they have noticed a difference, too. Tariq Ahmad Amarkhil, a 20-year-old eyeglasses salesman, said he has a growing feeling that the Taliban are “trying to adopt our way of life.”
“They came from the mountains, they could not understand our language and they did not know anything about our culture,” Amarkhil said.
He said that when they arrived, they denounced jeans and other Western clothing and destroyed musical instruments. But when Amarkhil and his friends recently arrived at security checkpoints with music playing inside the cars, Taliban soldiers simply waved them through, he said. While Western civilian clothing has become a rare sight on the streets of Kabul, some residents were surprised to see the Taliban wearing military uniforms that bore striking similarities to those worn by their former enemies.
In interviews, more than a half-dozen of the regime's youngest and oldest employees cited access to education as the primary reward for their struggles. “When we invaded Kabul, we pledged to become a better version of ourselves,” said Lal Muhammad Zakir, 25, a Taliban sympathizer who became a finance ministry employee. He said he signed up for an intensive English language course so that he could study abroad one day.
Not everyone is tempted by the big city.
Zabihullah Misbah and his friend Ahmadzai Fateh, both 25, were among the first fighters to rush into Kabul in 2021. Misbah still associates Kabul primarily with “bad things” such as adultery. “You are more connected to God when you are in the village,” he said. With fewer distractions, “one is mostly occupied with prayer.”
Misbah said that social ties in the villages are stronger, and life there is less lonely.
“When you follow jihad, it relaxes you,” Fatih said. But when we got here, we couldn't find peace.”
While many Afghans fled Kabul during the Taliban's control, it has returned to the crowded capital it once was. It can take hours to cross the smog-filled city from one side to the other.
Mansour and his friends admitted that the toxic air and separation from their families in rural Afghanistan made them reconsider life in the city. “Those who brought their families here are happier than us,” said Mansour, who has not yet found a wife. He added that rents in the city are expensive and apartments are very small.
When Taliban soldiers need to escape, they climb a hill in central Kabul, where the new regime has installed a giant flag of the Islamic emirate, or head to the Qargha Reservoir on the outskirts of the city, where they snack on pistachios in their pickup truck. Trucks.
Look for signs of moderation
Kabul residents, who have watched the Taliban's arrival with fear in 2021, said they hope that the number of former fighters embracing big-city life will outnumber those who reject it, and that the Taliban will become more moderate.
Many women say that they have not noticed such a development. Universities remain closed to them, and girls above the sixth grade are banned from school. The United Nations says the Taliban's top leadership has transformed Afghanistan from the isolated city of Kandahar into the most repressive country for women in the world.
“The Taliban will not change,” said Ruqaya, 25. She added that sales at her stall in the women's clothing market suddenly dropped last month after the Taliban-run Ministry of Order and Virtue temporarily detained women for dress code violations.
“None of the girls dare to go out on their own anymore,” said Ruqaya, who earned her bachelor’s degree in physics just before the company was taken over. When no one is looking, she is still reading scientific books behind her desk.
Bright plans for the capital
The Taliban have big plans for post-war reconstruction, but restrictions on women could become the main obstacle. Many foreign donors have abandoned the country in protest over the past two and a half years. Private investors are still rare.
Could the lure of expensive skyscrapers, new mosques and pothole-free roads eventually prompt the Taliban to make concessions, as some Afghans hope?
In recent months, the Taliban have pushed ahead with plans to restart work on a model city on the outskirts of Kabul, which was first designed more than a decade ago under the previous US-backed government but never built.
“We will call it the new Kabul city,” said Hamdullah Nomani, the Taliban’s urban development minister.
Construction manager Moghaddam Amin, 57, said early discussions between his company and the new government suggested the Taliban wanted a less ambitious project with less expensive housing options. But the Taliban now appear to have thrown their support behind the attractive original plans, which envisioned high-rise buildings, schools, universities, swimming pools, parks and shopping malls.
If Kabul's “new city” is completed, its construction could take decades. For now, the designated estate is only accessible via makeshift roads, lined with brick and stone factories and lone estate agents sitting on carpets in the sand.
