As the Taliban advanced across Afghanistan last summer, seizing territory from the Afghan government as foreign forces prepared to withdraw, we met Ainudeen, a hardened Taliban fighter, in the northern district of Balkh. Our conversation was brief, the war was still raging and there was a constant threat of Afghan government airstrikes. A few months later, with the Taliban government newly installed, sitting over a meal of fried fish by the Amu Darya river that separates Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, Ainudeen told me he was a Taliban sniper. He had killed dozens of Afghan security forces, he estimated, and wounded 10 on separate occasions. After the Taliban takeover, however, he was appointed Director of Lands and Urban Development in Balkh province. When I met him in the early days of the new regime, I asked him if he missed the “jihad” in which he had fought for so long. “Yes,” he replied bluntly. Now, a year later, sitting behind a wooden desk with the large black and white flag of the Islamic Emirate beside him, he seems to be still adjusting to his new life. “We fought against our enemies with our weapons, thanks to God we defeated them and now we are trying to serve our people with our pens.” Ainudeen says he was happy while he was fighting, but also happy now. Read more here.
