By Patricia Gossman
Fearing the Taliban is preparing for another assault, locals wonder if they can trust in the government.
A man I’ll call Hamid, a teacher who fled his home in the Afghan city of Kunduz for the relative security of Kabul, asked me a simple question: “Should I go back?”
This is not an easy question to answer. On September 28, Kunduz, a strategically important city in northern Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban. It was the first major city taken by the Taliban since the U.S. ejected them from power in late 2001. Afghan government forces did not regain full control of the city for nearly two weeks. Kunduz made world headlines when during the heat of the battle to retake the city, U.S. forces launched an airstrike on a hospital run by the aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières, killing 42 and wounding dozens more.
The day after the Taliban seized the city, its forces went looking for government employees, prominent residents and others who might oppose them. They detained Hamid after a local boy told Taliban commanders that there was a gun inside Hamid’s house. Owning a gun is neither unusual nor illegal in Afghanistan, but this was the second day after the Taliban had taken the city, and they wanted no surprises. “My wife took the gun when she left,” Hamid told the Taliban. His wife was among many civil servants in Kunduz who fled in panic as the Taliban advanced on the city; earlier this year the Taliban had identified all government employees as well as persons working with foreign organizations as potential targets. But the Taliban weren’t satisfied with Hamid’s answer – they wanted the gun. For the rest of that day, they threatened him repeatedly, leaving him fearful that he would be killed at any moment, and with good reason, as he witnessed Taliban commanders beating neighbors they identified as government officials. Eventually the Taliban released Hamid after someone intervened on his behalf, and he fled to Kabul.
After I spoke to Hamid, his question hung in the air: If he goes back, will government forces be able to protect him and his family?
Read the full story at The Diplomat