Armoured vehicles rolled past the former US embassy in Kabul on Saturday as the Taliban celebrated five years of what they call victory over foreign domination. But the parade was the easy part. Five years after seizing Kabul, the Taliban no longer have the luxury of presenting themselves as insurgents who inherited someone else’s failures. Afghanistan’s borders and security apparatus are theirs. So are the consequences. The gravest indictment is their failure to prevent Afghan territory from becoming a sanctuary for forces threatening their neighbours, despite repeated assurances to the contrary. The latest UN Security Council-mandated monitoring report says the Taliban authorities have “continued their support” for the TTP. Even if Kabul claims to have relocated around 2,000 TTP fighters and Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has reportedly warned the group’s leadership to halt attacks against Pakistan, the threat has not diminished. The TTP’s command, training and logistical networks have not been dismantled, and the same UN assessment points to growing operational and facilitation links involving the TTP, Al Qaeda, IS-K and other militant actors. That contrast is particularly damning. The Taliban fight IS-K with considerable force because it threatens their own rule. What Pakistan is entitled to ask is why comparable resolve disappears when the militants concerned share ideological or historical affinities with the Taliban. Its treatment of women provides an equally devastating record of government by exclusion. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are formally barred from secondary and higher education.
UNESCO estimates that 2.4 million girls have been denied secondary education since 2021. More than 90 per cent of Afghan 10-year-olds cannot read a simple text, and the country could face a shortage of more than 11,000 qualified female teachers by 2030. Calling this a cultural preference has become untenable. It is state policy directed against half the population. The Taliban have issued more than 100 decrees restricting women and girls. Female employment stands at roughly 7 per cent, and UN experts have warned that this systematic and institutionalised exclusion may amount to gender apartheid. Afghanistan desperately needs doctors, nurses, teachers, entrepreneurs and skilled workers, yet its rulers have deliberately blocked millions of women from becoming any of these. The Taliban complain of poverty and isolation while pursuing policies guaranteed to produce more of both. The humanitarian numbers expose the price. Around 21.9 million Afghans, or roughly 45pc of the population, require humanitarian assistance this year. Aid organisations say the number in need has risen by 3.5 million since the Taliban takeover, while the UN’s $1.7 billion humanitarian appeal is only about one-quarter funded. Donor fatigue is real, and ordinary Afghans should not be punished for the conduct of their rulers. But Kabul cannot endlessly blame outsiders for a humanitarian emergency while restricting female aid workers, hollowing out education and deliberately shrinking the productive capacity of its own population.
