Photo: Ahmad Sahel Arman Agence France-Presse A military parade took place on Wednesday at the former Bagram military base — which was the nerve center of operations against the Taliban insurgency — in the presence of senior Taliban officials.
Abdullah Hasrat – Agence France-Presse, Aysha Safi – Agence France-Presse, Pascale Trouillaud – Agence France-Presse in Kabul
Published at 11:19 Updated at 14:48
- Middle East
Determined to “stay the course of Islamic law,” the Taliban marked the third anniversary of their recapture of Afghanistan on Wednesday with a military parade at a former U.S. base and festivities and horn-honking concerts in Kabul.
The military parade took place for more than an hour at the former Bagram base — the former nerve center of operations against the Taliban insurgency — about fifty kilometers from Kabul, in the presence of senior Taliban officials.
A ballet of helicopters and combat aircraft flew over the procession of dozens of military vehicles of Soviet origin or recovered by the Taliban from American forces and the Afghan army during their lightning victory three years ago.
A long line of Soviet BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers, ZIL-135 trucks and troop carriers paraded in front of the flower-bedecked stands where, among hundreds of guests, there were a few Chinese and Iranian diplomats.
Heavy mobile artillery and Soviet T-54 tanks joined the parade.
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Photo: Ahmad Sahel Arman Agence France-Presse Turbaned motorcyclists carry yellow cans, emblematic of the 2021 uprising.
The Taliban have also parades turbaned motorcyclists carrying the iconic yellow cans with which they carried out so many deadly explosive attacks during their long insurrection.
In a message read to the audience, Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund vowed to “stay the course of Islamic law.”
Our leaders “must be mindful that our duties did not end with jihad [holy war], we now have the responsibility to stay the course of Islamic law,” he said.
On August 15, 2021, the Taliban marched unopposed into Kabul, leading to the flight of the government and the collapse of the US-led Western coalition that had ousted them from power 20 years earlier.
The anniversary is being celebrated one day early, according to the Afghan calendar.
Photo: Wakil Kohsar Agence France-Presse No women took part in the “Victory Day” festivities on the streets of Kabul.
Horn concerts
The celebrations then moved to Kabul, to the Ghazi stadium, where hundreds of men wearing caps and white T-shirts demonstrated combat sports and cycling.
“Independence brings joy to the people,” Khalid Hotak, 30, a practitioner of wushu, a martial art, told AFP. “Security is there. That’s freedom.”
No women took part in the festivities. In three years, the Taliban have increased their liberticidal measures against them, severely restricting their access to the world of work and education.
“It's been three years since girls' dreams were buried,” said Madina, a 20-year-old Afghan woman who had to drop out of university.
But in Kabul, where the streets and roundabouts were decked out with thousands of the Islamic Emirate's large black and white flags, crowds of men celebrated the anniversary with jubilation.
The area around the U.S. Embassy was jammed with traffic, pickup trucks loaded with Taliban and flags trying to force their way through, honking horns.
Some rode up to four on a motorbike, the Emirate's flag flying. Pick-up trucks were filled with young boys with their armed Taliban fathers. Some of the children wore headbands with the message: “Sharia or martyrdom.”
Thousands of Afghans had been invited to the capital from half a dozen central provinces for this “Victory Day,” declared a public holiday.
But on social media, many questioned the spontaneity of this celebration. Internet users assured that entire schools had been forced to participate in the festivities.
“This is not Afghanistan’s Victory Day, but a black day,” an NGO employee told AFP via WhatsApp.
“The last three years have been among the worst. People are hungry, young people have no work. […] They want to leave the country.”
Bandeau and Kalashnikov
Many members of the security forces crisscrossed the capital clinging to pick-up trucks, headbands around their foreheads and Kalashnikovs or other automatic rifles in their hands.
The security forces were mobilized en masse, the main risk appearing to be a new attack by the jihadist group Islamic State, after the one that left one dead in a Shiite neighborhood of Kabul last Sunday.
After three years of Taliban rule, while security now generally reigns, Afghanistan is grappling with anaemic growth, massive unemployment and a serious humanitarian crisis.
For Human Rights Watch, this anniversary “is a grim reminder of the human rights crisis in Afghanistan.”
The UN’s human rights rapporteur for Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, joined a statement by 29 other human rights experts urging the international community “not to trivialize the de facto authorities or their appalling human rights violations.”
The Taliban government is still not recognized by any country.
But Kabul has made diplomatic gains by building relations with neighboring countries, as well as China and Russia, and has opened a dialogue with the West by participating in the Doha talks in June for the first time.