It was a sorry sight viewing on television several thousands of Afghans as they besieged Kabul International Airport, in their desperate attempts to get on board any available aircraft and flee the country after Taliban forces captured its capital city.
While there were those who struggled to climb in through some punctured jet bridges, several others clambered on aircraft bodies, reaching for whatever parts they could cling to, including the wings and undercarriages. They even held on as the aircraft taxied out of the tarmac. Of course, many fell off and sustained serious injuries. And that’s besides those clustered beneath the aircraft some of whom may have been crushed to death by the huge tyres. It was totally crazy, to say the least! Even the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 can hardly compare to it.
About a week before this, a social media viral video had shown the now runaway Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, in panic mode at a worship centre apparently located within the state house court, as strange explosions were heard from very close quarters. The first few blasts had forced him to rise from his squatting position. But when the kaboom! persisted, Mr. President began to pace around nervously while some of his security men hurried off to investigate.
At the end of its 10 years occupation of Afghanistan, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) completed the withdrawal of its forces from the country in 1989, leaving a puppet regime dominated by Pashtun tribesmen to continue to defend itself against the US-backed mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla). Before long, the latter took over Kabul and established a government comprised mainly of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other ethnic minorities.
Some Islamic extremists who still wanted the majority Pashtuns to be in control of the Kabul government later emerged from the victorious mujahideen factions. They called themselves the Taliban (religious students) and, after a while, wrestled power from the minority tribesmen.
The Taliban were said to have ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, during which period they introduced stringent laws described as emanating more from ancient customs and traditions than pure Islamic doctrines as contained in the Quran. Prayers at mosques became a must for everyone with defaulters rounded up and flogged; women were forbidden to go to work outside their homes; girls schools were shut down; cinema halls, private television stations and event centres were closed; statues of living people were taken down; doctors could only examine their female patients except in the presence of another woman; and of course women must not be seen without the netted long hood called burka. The religious police were said to have enforced these rules with on-the-spot punishments, including amputations and stoning to death without the benefit of fair hearing. A lot of countries and international organisations never relented in condemning human-rights abuses in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
The US was pricked the more when the Taliban regime chose to provide sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was fingered as the brain behind the 1990s attacks on American interests in Africa and the Middle East; and even the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001. Since the Taliban would not accede to its demand for Osama’s handover for trial, Washington had no choice than to deploy US aerial arsenal in support of the Northern Alliance – a group of Afghan militia forces already resisting the Taliban government. With these aerial bombardments which greatly weakened the government forces, the Alliance was able to march into Kabul in the same 2001. And so, the Taliban were defeated but surely not wiped out as they later regrouped in the remote areas of neighbouring Pakistan from where they launched the fight-back that eventually saw them retake Kabul penultimate Sunday, after 20 years.
With the ousting of the Taliban, the United Nations, at a meeting in Germany, negotiated an interim government among leaders of the triumphant Northern Alliance. Led by Hamid Karzai who was later elected the country’s president, the ad hoc regime supervised the drafting of a new constitution for the enthronement of a presidential democratic system in 2004. American troops had remained to oversee the process and also continue their hunt for Osama.
But with the killing of the al-Qaeda warlord on May 2, 2011, Washington began to consider scaling down its military presence in the war-ravaged Asian nation; coupled with the fact that the natives had begun to complain about rising civilian casualties resulting from US misdirected air assaults against Taliban positions.
According to reports, the erstwhile administration of President Donald Trump had begun to implement an agreed gradual withdrawal of US soldiers, military instructors and contractors from Afghanistan after 20 years of collaborations. Why President Joe Biden decided to rush the process was exactly what he was struggling to explain during a White House press briefing on Tuesday. He had insisted that US troops would no longer continue to fight Kabul’s war after two decades with Afghan soldiers showing reluctance to take charge.
Biden had earlier been reported as saying that the Afghan military had been sufficiently trained and possessed enough fighting men to repel any Taliban attacks in the event of a complete US pullout. But having watched the unfold situation in Kabul, many Americans across party lines now seem to know better than to believe their president on this account.
Surely, the Taliban are now in charge in Kabul with promise of a better reign, but the historical in-fighting by the country’s militia groups may mean that the Afghan capital will not enjoy any respite from the sound of explosives. In fact, kaboom! has since become a normal sound in Kabul, even at peace time.
Having said that, can we now seriously consider President Muhammadu Buhari’s fear that Africa may become the Taliban’s next attraction? No doubt, Boko Haram and ISWAP are very likely comrades for any Islamic fundamentalist group seeking expansion to Africa.

By: Ibelema Jumbo