The Taliban is rebranding Kabul with its white flags, but what comes next has Afghans on edge – National

The 5 Taliban flags exterior the terminal at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport serve discover to arriving passengers that Afghanistan is beneath new possession.

Stark white banners have changed Afghanistan’s black-red-and-green nationwide flag at authorities ministries, police stations and navy posts within the capital.

They fly from the entrance fenders of the Taliban pickups that race Kabul’s streets with gunmen seated within the again.

Youngsters hawk handheld variations exterior the empty U.S. embassy compound. Faculties have been ordered to show them.

Kabul is being rebranded by the Taliban, who need to ensure that no person can neglect who’s in cost now. The nation is not a republic, it’s the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

However precisely what which means past a change of flag colors has many in Kabul on edge, and planning their escape to international locations like Canada.

“We’re following shariah legislation right here,” Rahman Mansour stated, sitting in his workplace at a Kabul police station, the place he was the newly put in Taliban deputy commander.

He stated the Taliban would implement current legal guidelines that have been in keeping with shariah, however not these deemed to battle with it.

A Taliban flag sat on his desk, alongside along with his radios and two cell telephones. One other hung from a stand on the ground, and a giant one coated the wall. Yet one more might be seen out the window behind him.

Among the many issues police have been coping with that day was a grenade assault at a Taliban checkpoint. Requested about it, one in every of Mansour’s workers performed a mobile phone video of a person confessing to having been paid to do it.

However Mansour insisted safety was higher than beneath the earlier authorities, which he blamed for failing to curb corruption, kidnappings and medicines — though the killings of near 100 in current bombings at Shia mosques in Kunduz and Kandahar steered it was nonetheless a major problem.

Based on Mansour, the present model of the Taliban was totally different. It was extra politically savvy and had a stronger navy than final time round. However he stated its underlying ideology remained the identical: shariah.

“A Muslim won’t ever change his ideology,” he added.

At one other district police station, the Taliban in cost, Qari Skakir, stated criminals have been referred to the Islamic courts, which punished them in accordance with shariah.

Requested if these punishments included public executions, which occurred in the course of the Taliban’s final reign, he stated, “It is a query that I can’t reply.”

Because it blankets Kabul with its flags, the Taliban is cleaning the town of the symbols of the Afghanistan it needs everybody to neglect.

At Massoud Circle, a monument to the anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by Al Qaeda, portraits of the person it honoured have been ripped down.

On a current afternoon, Taliban members posed for pictures there alongside the Taliban flags that now ring the memorial. One stated he had fought the U.S. forces, and would do it once more in the event that they returned.

He stated he solely needed “freedom and peace,” and insisted no person ought to worry the Taliban. “Persons are actually good with us and we’re good with them,” he stated.

Within the downtown market district, the place distributors promote every little thing from pomegranates to used footwear, site visitors was gridlocked. The drivers paid no consideration to the site visitors cop within the white cap.

Residents interviewed on the sidewalk gave a nod as much as the Taliban, saying they’d made the town safer, however the message modified as soon as the TV digicam was turned off.

“We have to say we’re pleased,” one man defined.

One other spoke optimistically concerning the new Taliban authorities. However later, he confided he had labored for the Afghan navy and requested for assist fleeing the nation.

A younger man at Shahr-e Naw Park, now a tent metropolis for Afghans who got here to Kabul to flee preventing in different elements of the nation, watched the Taliban official in control of the world wander away earlier than pulling a reporter apart to debate his “state of affairs.”

He stated he used to work on the presidential palace. He’d heard Canada was taking 40,000 Afghan refugees and he needed to know tips on how to apply. A gunshot went off close by.

“You see our state of affairs,” he stated.

Honking and dashing by site visitors in vehicles that ferry round fighters from the provinces, the Taliban in Kabul generally seem like the very factor they declare to have defeated: occupiers.

At a Kabul restaurant, an armed Taliban entered with 4 youths and sat on the head of a desk along with his rifle cradled throughout his lap.

He performed along with his cellphone. The waiters regarded nervous. They put a moaning Taliban track on the stereo. Higher to appease the town’s new masters.

“We’re planning to make Afghanistan like a contemporary flower, rebuild it once more in accordance with the shariah guidelines,” one other Taliban defined as he sat on a bench in Wazir Akbar Khan Park.

As soon as a well-liked place to fly kites, picnic in rose gardens and funky off within the pool, the hilltop retreat overlooking Kabul is now a Taliban put up, and the massive Afghan flag that when flew from the Martyr’s Memorial Monument is gone.

The thick-bearded fighter stated he had participated in “jihad in opposition to the invaders,” and praised God for permitting the Taliban to return to energy.

Those that have achieved “crimes up to now” must reply to the courts, he stated, however in any other case no person ought to be involved concerning the Taliban.

“They don’t have to fret about it,” he stated.

‘Don’t fear, no downside’ may as properly be printed on the Taliban flag. It’s the theme the Taliban hold reciting as they search recognition because the official authorities of Afghanistan.

Don’t fear about ladies; don’t fear about score-settling in opposition to Afghans who supported the worldwide forces; don’t fear about Al Qaeda; don’t fear concerning the Taliban’s lengthy file of misogyny and violence.

In the meantime, the Taliban claims its unhealthy picture is the results of “media propaganda.”

In his workplace on the fourth flooring of the Ministry of Data, the Taliban’s official spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, sat with a plate of apples and instructed reporters they’d seven minutes of his time.

He stated the Taliban was “performing and governing in accordance with shariah” to “construct an Islamic authorities after preventing a few years with invaders.”

“It’s not an correct definition of us if they’re saying we’re a terrorist regime,” he stated, responding to Canada’s designation of the Taliban as a terrorist group.

“Twenty years proved that the Taliban combat for nation and freedom,” he stated. “Anyway, it’s a brand new season, Canada ought to behave responsibly.”

Reclining on flooring pillows at a Kabul house, snacking on a bowl of walnuts, one other Taliban official who didn’t need to be recognized insisted issues can be totally different this time.

The lights went out. There had been an explosion on the ability grid, though it was unclear whether or not it was one other bombing.

He stated the Taliban needed ladies to work — supplied they have been coated. He vowed that Al Qaeda can be dismantled, and that there can be no retaliation in opposition to Afghans who had labored for international militaries.

“It’s a brand new emirate,” he stated.

After which he requested whether or not he may qualify for refugee standing in Canada.

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