Why disaffected young Afghans are warming to a Taliban comeback

Young Afghans play cricket in Shar-e Naw Park in downtown Kabul. As misery builds in the capital, more Afghans their age appear open to the idea of making concessions to the Taliban in hopes of achieving peace, stability and prosperity. (Tim Craig/THE WASHINGTON POST)

By Tim Craig-March 1

KABUL — At this stage of his career, Ahmad Jawad would like to be selling the terraced estates that housed Taliban leaders before they were driven from the Afghan capital in 2001.

But the 27-year-old realtor hasn’t sold a house in nearly a year, and he is so desperate for money that he hopes the Taliban returns to Kabul to impose “rule of law.”

“If they can enforce the law like it was enforced during their reign, they are welcome,” said Jawad, who blames unemployment, graft and the lack of security for a collapse in Kabul’s housing market. “There was less crime. There was less corruption. There was less embezzlement.”

His words reflect a shift in the opinions held by some of Kabul’s millennials on both the Taliban and President Ashraf Ghani’s government: Bashing the Islamist insurgency has gone out of style as frustration with the current leadership mounts.

In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, young urban Afghans were among the most vocal opponents of the Taliban, recoiling not just at its brutality, which included public executions, but also the restraints it imposed on women and its demands that men grow beards.

Noorullah Noori, 24, looks online for ways to jumpstart his logistics business. As Afghanistan’s economy flounders, he has struggled to find clients and now thinks the government should reconcile with the Taliban to turn things around. (Tim Craig/THE WASHINGTON POST)

These progressive 20-somethings, with their embrace of technology, education and Western culture, were seen as an emblem of Afghanistan’s bright future. They also formed the backbone of an urban workforce that thrived when more than 100,000 troops and billions of dollars of relief money flowed into the country after 9/11.

[Years after invasion, the U.S. leaves a cultural imprint on Afghanistan]

Now, as the drawdown of coalition forces saps revenue from the local economy, many younger Afghans appear more open to the idea of the Taliban assimilating into, and perhaps even changing, the existing government and constitutional order.

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