ON AFGHANISTAN | Meet the Taliban’s Would-Be Rainmaker

August 9, 2022

Hassib Habibi carries his convictions as easily as his AK-47. Now he has to resuscitate the Afghan economy as the 31-year-old deputy director of economic cooperation at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Habibi recalled the debates he had with friends in Kabul who supported the former Western-backed Afghan Republic. He describes the encounters as tiresome exercises, but he kept at them.

“They would point to me and say, ‘People like you are the ones keeping us from advancing,’ and I’d just look right back at them and say, ‘What progress, show me one example?’ And they’d turn back around and say, ‘Because you people won’t let us, that’s why.’ It just went on like that forever.”

The circular nature of those conversations shows that over the decades, not much has changed in the Afghan conflict. In the 1980s, nearly every family had members who sided with the Soviet-backed communist government and others who took the side of the Western-supported mujahideen. Over the last two decades, there were families and friends divided between the Taliban and the Republic.

Source: Meet the Taliban’s Would-Be Rainmaker, Foreign Policy, by Ali M. Latifi, July 16, 2022

Related Posts:

ON AFGHANITAN |ON MIGRATION – Afghans who fled to the US hope that Congress will fix their status – The World 

ON AFGHANITAN |ON MIGRATION – Afghans who fled to the US hope that Congress will fix their status – The World 

After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban tens of thousands of Afghans made their way to the United States. They were allowed to stay under a program called “humanitarian parole.” But that status expires in a couple of months, and although they can renew one time, many are calling for Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would allow them to seek more permanent status.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *