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Herat, Afghanistan (AP) —Since the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan in the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops more than three and a half months ago, their fighters have been from armed groups fighting in the mountains and fields. A country that has changed its role into a running army.
Many Taliban infantry are now doing new jobs. We have checkpoints on the streets and security guards in and around cities and towns in Afghanistan. Last month, several Taliban fighters posed for portrait photos at the Associated Press night patrol and at a checkpoint in the western city of Herat.
One of them, 21-year-old Ahmadwari, was patrolling the village of Kamalkarag, north of Herat. A student at an Islamic religious school known as Madrasa, he said he joined the Taliban because he believed in the teachings of the Koran and opposed the American presence in his country and the former Afghan government, which was widely criticized for corruption. rice field.
Now he said he was very busy with his new responsibility to provide security to the area he was assigned to. He hopes that both he and his country have a bright future and is “99% confident” that a better day will come for all in Afghanistan.
After the Taliban took over in mid-August, Afghanistan was already devastated and the aid-dependent economy was in full swing. The international community has withheld hundreds of millions of dollars of money that 38 million countries depended on. Billions of dollars in foreign Afghanistan assets have been frozen.
Afghanistan’s banking system is largely isolated from the world, the new Taliban rulers are largely unable to pay salaries, and the economy as a whole is out of work.
Women have almost always been locked out of the employment market, except for certain professions and high school education. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people, including highly educated professionals, have fled or tried to flee Afghanistan, causing brain drain.
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The Associated Press writer Elena Becatros, who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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