Kabul. «September 11th? It is when America launched airplanes at skyscrapers to then justify the invasion of Afghanistan and unleash a bloodbath »pontiffs Said Mohammad at a spice stall in the largest bazaar in Kabul. On the day of Al Qaeda’s attack on the twin towers, “the Afghans don’t give a damn,” admits a newspaper source. Twenty years later, many are convinced that it was Uncle Sam’s plot to occupy Afghanistan. And Mohammad aligns himself with the new course: “Thanks to Allah, the Islamic Emirate has now taken power.”
The women who frequent the crowded bazaar are covered from head to toe like ghosts and none dare to speak to reporters. The stalls are overcrowded, but there is no money to do the shopping. In front of the Azizi bank, one of the most important in the country, the queue has turned into a crowd. Hundreds of people are crowded together since dawn in the hope of entering to be able to collect the paltry $ 200 a week provided for per family. »We have no money to buy food. People are angry. I have been in line for three days to withdraw my money, ”protests Moahmmed Taher, displaced in Kabul.
At the crossroads, too young hawkers wave the black and white flags of the Emirate of various sizes trying to place them for motorists. Sales are poor and one of the guys confesses: «I don’t care about the Emirate. I am poor and I sell flags to live ». September 11 would have been too provocative, but intelligence sources predict the proclamation of the second Emirate today or in the next few days. The fundamentalist party could, however, be marred by the rebel cousins of Isis Khorasan, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State with cells in Kabul. The terrorists are preparing suicide attacks and the target may be journalists or the hotels where they are staying to bloody the Taliban ceremony.
In response to the demonstrations last week calling for freedom and democracy, 300 women paraded from head to toe in black with the escort of militiamen. The Taliban who left the university took to the streets in support of the policies of segregation in the classes with respect to men and in support of the Emirate. The beauty salons in Kabul, which have sprung up like mushrooms in the last 20 years, are now closed or painted black even if they were sex shops. The “secret” meeting with the beauticians of a famous salon is like a James Bond date in the days of the cold war. First they get into the car, in front of them in two, then they let themselves be dropped off at a certain distance from the center and in the end they enter first and then the journalists stealthily. “Watch. The Taliban forced us to obscure with black paint all the female faces we had on the windows – explains Zainab, invented name – Customers no longer come because they are afraid. They can close us at any moment ».
Nothing compared to the Taliban brutality that emerges in the rest of the country. A video posted on Twitter from the Panshir area shows the cold-blooded killing of a man in camouflage stopped at a checkpoint and identified as a possible militant of the resistance. The alleged soldier, taken out of a car and pushed to the side of the road, is eliminated with a barrage of Kalashnikovs under the eyes of a frightened and shocked crowd. Even more atrocious is the video that arrived at Il Giornale from the valleys of Badakhshan, in the far north-east of the country. A mother in tears is first hit with the kick of a Kalashnikov by a Taliban and then confronted by another who tries to block her with a punch in the face. The woman, indifferent to the beating, continues to run and then throws herself on the ground invoking the name of “Allah” several times. A few seconds later – when the mobile phone manages to cross the Taliban checkpoint – we find the woman in tears, lying next to the body of a young man, probably her son, who is dying in a pool of blood.
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