By Kathy Gannon – Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (F) — The Taliban hoisted their iconic white flag over the Afghan presidential palace on Saturday, a spokesman said, as the United States and the world commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The banner, adorned with a Qur’anic verse, was hoisted through Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, prime minister of the Taliban interim government, in a low-key ceremony, said Ahmadullah Muttaqi, head of the multimedia branch of the Taliban’s cultural commission.
The raising of the flag marked the official start of the new government’s paintings, he said. The Taliban would keep their previous promise of an inclusive composition.
Two decades ago, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with a heavy hand, banned television, and on September 11, 2001, the day of the horrific attacks on the United States, the news spread through crackling radios through the dark streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The city rarely had electricity and a million more people lived in Kabul at the time. It took only two months for the U. S. -led coalition to expel the Taliban from the capital, and on December 7, 2001, they were defeated, expelled. from its last stronghold in southern Kandahar, its non-secular heart.
Twenty years later, the Taliban are back in Kabul. The United States is gone, ending its “eternal war” two weeks before the Sept. 11 anniversary and two weeks after the Taliban returned to the Afghan capital on Aug. 15.
Some things have replaced since the first of the Taliban regime in the 1990s.
This time, armed fighters roam the city’s streets in their vans, instead making their way through the chaotic and congested city traffic of more than five million people. In the 90s, in Kabul, controlled through the Taliban, beauty salons were banned. Now, Taliban fighters enjoy the newest haircuts, even if their beards remain intact according to their devout beliefs.
But the Taliban have begun to launch harsh adjustments that have affected women to the maximum, such as the ban on women’s sports. They also used violence to prevent women from having equivalent protest rights.
On Saturday, at a luxury women’s shop in the city’s Karte Se neighborhood, Marzia Hamidi, a taekwondo competitor who aspires to be a national champion, said the Taliban’s return had shattered her dreams.
She was one of the women targeted through the Taliban and described as “agents of the West” one of the recent protests. He said he was not surprised by the U. S. withdrawal.
“This year or next, they had to leave,” he said. “They came here for their own interest and left for their own interest. “
Hamidi expects the Taliban to relent and ease their restrictions, but when he looked at the store’s owner, Faisal Naziri, he said that “most of the men in Afghanistan agree with what the Taliban say and their regulations oppose them. “
Naziri nodded and said that the preservation of women’s rights is a cause that will take Afghan men to the streets.
On Saturday, the Taliban even organized their own women’s march. This one referred to dozens of masked women from head to toe, layers hidden from black veils. They filled an auditorium at Kabul University’s high school in a well-choreographed snub of more than 20 years of Western efforts to empower women.
By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press
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