"We don’t have any grudges," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at a news conference in Kabul.
www.nbcnews.com
This could get interesting. They might be attempting a balancing act, at least initially. They might realize that after 20 years of the people experiencing more freedoms it’s going to be a lot harder to bring back the old oppression.
Even within the US the Republicans know once Americans experience expanded social services its going to be a lot harder for them to dial them back and still have support.
I think it may be a bit more subtle than that, but, yes, agreed, they may be attempting some sort of balancing act, at least, initially.
And yes, people have experienced more freedoms (in the cities, the ethnicities who are not Pashtun, women to name but three groups whose lives were immeasurably improved over the past twenty years - and here, I will just throw in the fact that I, personally, have observed, on countless occasions, crocodile lines of girls, young girls and older girls, and boys, too, all attired in neat school uniforms, heading to or from school in Kabul), and will not take kindly to their removal.
The Taliban will find that keeping, and holding and maintaining their rule (especially in the cities, and other ethnic regions) - without some form of consent - which may require some degree of a balancing act - on the part of the ruled - is not the same as military (and political) victories. If they insist on ruling by force, inevitably, some will contest that.
Moreover, foreign aid - which has comprised between two thirds (67%) and 80% of the state budget will be cut entirely - Germany has announced today that all foreign aid to Afghanistan will cease (and Germany was a generous donor) - will be cut, or its retention may be conditional on some degree of compromise on the part of the Taliban, or an indication that they will be prepared to be more lenient on matters of human rights, civil rights, and women's rights, than they were when they ruled the country previously.
And there is the issue of the position of the other ethnicities.
Under Taliban rule in the 1990s, the Hazaras - who are Shia - were treated atrociously; I cannot see Iran tolerating that - as the leading Shia state in the world, domestically, they cannot afford to be seen to tolerate that, quite apart from any theological ties they have to the Hazara, and this is the case, even if, they - for reasons of realpolitik, - wish to have an amicable relationship with the Taliban.
And then, there are the Tajiks and Uzbeks, two of the other ethnic groups.
The security forces were mainly comprised of Tajiks (and some Uzbeks; far fewer Pashtun served, from what I could see).
Apparently, several military planes - full of fleeing security forces - landed in both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on Sunday; I would be willing to wager that the people those planes carried were soldiers (and police, possibly) who were Tajiks and Uzbeks.
Thus, these countries - now host to an unknown number of trained troops and security personnel from Afghanistan - will be keeping a close eye - not just on relations with Afghanistan, and on proceedings within Afghanistan - but also on how people of their own ethnicity are treated by the Taliban (who, if anything, traditionally were an extreme expression of Pashtun nationalism expressed in an ascetic and severe interpretation of Islam).
On Sunday, Tajikistan refused to allow the plane carrying fleeing President Ashraf Ghani - and his immediate entourage - to land in the country; while some twits on Twitter have sneered at what they described as a "lack of Muslim solidarity" I think it goes far deeper than that.
Ghani - who is Pashtun - seems to have had difficulty in dealing with dissenting opinions, and voices, and was famously incapable of forging harmonious relations with the Tajik members of his administration.
I don't doubt for one minute that he was haunted by the appalling death - murder - of former President Najibullah - who was cruelly murdered by the Taliban in 1996 - and, while such an end may have awaited him, the manner of his departure - he didn't formally resign, nor did he formally put any sort of transition or interim administration with any sort of authority in place - left an awful lot to be desired; it was an abdication of responsibility of the worst kind, and left those of his government who had remained loyal and had stayed at their posts terribly exposed, and betrayed.
