Victory songs and military parade with equipment abandoned by foreign soldiers: the Taliban celebrated on Wednesday the first anniversary of the withdrawal from Afghanistan of the coalition forces, led by the United States, and their return to power after 20 years of war.
Kabul residents preferred to stay home on the regime’s public holiday, but hundreds of its supporters gathered in Massoud Square, near the former US Embassy, and drove through the adjacent streets, with white flags on which is written the proclamation of Islamic faith.
“Death to America! Death to the occupants! Long live freedom ! they chanted as officials gathered for a ceremony at the former Bagram Air Base, the nerve center of US forces during the war.
“The flag of Islam flies high. We are happy to live under the banner of Islam,” Shah Ahmad Omari, a Taliban fighter, told Agence France-Presse.
The Taliban regime, which has largely imposed itself since their return to power — the ultra-rigorous interpretation of Islam having characterized their first reign between 1996 and 2001 — with, in particular, significant restrictions imposed on women, has not yet been recognized by any country.
In the streets of the capital, Afghanistan’s new masters held high banners celebrating victories against three powers, with the British Empire and the former Soviet Union also losing wars in Afghanistan.
“Since the Americans left, there has been no more war and that makes us happy,” Naseer Ahmad Safi, a trader from Kabul, told Agence France-Presse.
“Business was good when the foreign forces were present, but it will improve further. The Islamic Emirate has only existed for a year,” he insisted.
Military parade
In a statement, the government proclaimed that the day marked the first anniversary of “the country’s liberation from American occupation.” So many mujahideen [combattants du régime] were injured, so many children were orphaned and so many women were widowed,” he wrote.
On Bagram airfield where a military parade had been organized in the morning by the authorities, groups of Taliban fighters in traditional tunics and carrying grenades on their backs marched in front of the crowd, according to images broadcast by television. State. Foreign media were not allowed to enter.
A few minutes later, dozens of military vehicles, including armored vehicles, such as American Humvees, seized during the war or abandoned by foreign troops at the time of their chaotic withdrawal in August 2021, were exhibited.
On August 30, 2021, one minute before midnight, the last American soldier left Kabul airport, 24 hours ahead of the deadline set by President Joe Biden for the withdrawal of the American contingent. This departure ended the longest military intervention of the United States, launched in reaction to the attack of September 11, 2001.
The war claimed the lives of more than 2,400 American soldiers and more than 3,500 from other NATO countries, according to the US military. Tens of thousands of Afghans have also perished, victims of the attacks committed by the Taliban.
Despite the pride of the latter to have regained power, their country of 38 million inhabitants must face one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, according to the United Nations.