‘I By no means Believed That Would Occur’: After 20 Years of Struggle, an Abrupt Finish

KABUL, Afghanistan — By the point Ghulam Maroof Rashid’s fiftieth birthday handed, he had spent greater than one-third of his life combating for the Taliban on one battlefield or one other in Afghanistan. He believed they’d finally win the warfare however had no concept that this yr would lastly be its finish.

“We as soon as thought that perhaps the day would come once we wouldn’t hear the sound of an airplane,” he stated this month whereas sitting on the dusty crimson carpet of a governor’s compound in Wardak Province. “We’ve been very drained for the final 20 years.”

Within the final yr of the warfare, the Taliban’s lightning military offensive, the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the withdrawal of the last American troops, have led to an upheaval as profound because the U.S. invasion in 2001 — two decades ago this month.

Now, former fighters like Mr. Rashid are grappling with governance. A technology of girls are struggling to maintain a sliver of house in public life. And Afghans throughout the nation are questioning what comes subsequent.

Mr. Rashid’s story is just one within the kaleidoscope of experiences Afghans have shared over time of the American warfare that formally started on Oct. 7, 2001, when the darkish silhouette of U.S. bombers clouded the Afghan skies.

Since then, a technology of Afghans in city areas grew up spirited by an inflow of worldwide support. However for greater than 70 p.c of the inhabitants residing in rural areas, the lifestyle remained largely unchanged — apart from these caught beneath the violent umbrella of the Western warfare effort that displaced, wounded and killed hundreds.

The New York Occasions spoke to 5 Afghans concerning the sudden finish of the American warfare in Afghanistan, and the uncertainty that lies forward.

The Rebel

A younger intelligence officer with the Taliban within the Nineties, Mr. Rashid remembers the assaults on the World Commerce Middle and the Pentagon: “I began farming at first however then grew to become a trainer within the village college,” he stated about his life after the Taliban’s collapse. “Then, we began our jihad.”

Quickly, they had been planting Russian-made mines and home made explosive gadgets on the roads, one of many deadliest techniques of the warfare. Mr. Rashid stated he primarily fought in Chak, his residence district. That district fell to the Taliban about 4 months in the past.

“I keep in mind as a result of we paid the military troopers some cash so they might journey to their houses,” he stated. “I didn’t anticipate that two months later all People would have left and we’d be visiting our buddies in Kabul.”

Mr. Rashid has discovered himself as soon as extra within the Taliban authorities. He goes to work on the Wardak governor’s workplace day-after-day, sleeps along with his household each evening and not shudders on the metallic whir of plane overhead.

The NGO Employee

When the Taliban started its brutal advance throughout the nation this yr, Khatera, 34, considered her daughter, simply 14 years outdated — the identical age Khatera was when she realized of her impromptu engagement through the first Taliban regime to stave off the potential for being compelled to wed a Talib.

“I knew what life would seem like,” she recalled because the insurgents returned in what appeared like an unstoppable pressure. “Feminine season was over.”

She mirrored on the profession she constructed — from a broadcaster at a radio station to the mission supervisor for a global support group — over the previous 20 years. “I had the pleasure of independence and financial freedom,” she stated. “After I was entering into these doorways, I noticed what life could possibly be.”

Within the first few weeks because the Taliban took over, a lot of that freedom is gone. Khatera is afraid to ship her kids to highschool. She is afraid to go to her workplace and is aware of that even when she is ready to, she couldn’t return to her outdated job. The worldwide support group she works for put a person in her place to speak with the Taliban.

“That is the worst feeling as a girl, I really feel helpless,” she stated.

The Soldier

On a latest day in September, Shir Agha Safi, 29, stood in entrance of two Marine army law enforcement officials exterior the tent metropolis on the bottom in Quantico, Va., that was now his short-term residence. He had been evacuated from Afghanistan this summer season, together with hundreds of others.

“I by no means believed that may occur, that each one of Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban,” Mr. Safi stated, regardless that he had spent the final yr on some of the unstable entrance strains in Afghanistan.

Till Aug. 15, he had been an intelligence officer within the Afghan Military, after becoming a member of the U.S.-backed army pressure greater than a decade earlier.

Each of the Marines, when requested, had by no means heard of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province, the place Mr. Safi had spent months locked in a bloody city battle with the Taliban. A cascade of suicide bombings and airstrikes, each Afghan and American, destroyed a lot of the town, leaving tons of of combatants and civilians useless and wounded.

“At the moment we nonetheless had hope,” Mr. Safi stated of the battle for Lashkar Gah, which dragged by means of the summer season as surrounding districts collapsed. “We by no means thought to give up.”

The place Mr. Safi will find yourself after he leaves Quantico is something however clear, although he understands he is perhaps positioned in a house elsewhere in the USA.

“Have you learnt about Iowa?” he requested.

The Civilian

Abdul Basir Fisrat, 48, has pushed vehicles alongside the Herat-Kandahar-Kabul route for 35 years, however through the twilight months of the American warfare, that path traced the collapse of a lot of the nation because the Taliban swept towards the capital.

The primary district that he noticed fall was Nawrak, in Ghazni Province, about 5 months in the past. He was relieved to see it go: A safety checkpoint staffed by troopers from the earlier authorities used to fireplace on his truck, demanding cash to cross. After it was seized, he stated, “we thanked God that we had been saved from the oppression of the federal government troopers.”

Mr. Fisrat lives in Kandahar along with his household, however he makes the 1,000-mile journey each time there’s work. He has made due with out an schooling and pushed beneath 5 completely different Afghan governments because the Eighties, two of them dominated by the Taliban.

Now Mr. Fisrat, who owns three vehicles, has the potential to pocket what he was paying in hundreds of {dollars} in bribes to the Afghan authorities. Beneath the Taliban, he pays none. It could be a major windfall, if it was not for the worsening economic system that has made journeys fewer and much between. However the lack of combating means he can go the place he desires when he desires: “If I need to, I’ll depart in the course of the evening,” he stated.

The Civil Servant

The lifetime of Samira Khairkhwa, 25, encapsulates the beneficial properties made for Afghan girls through the warfare years, and the ambition these advances spurred in lots of them.

After ending school within the north, she discovered her strategy to Kabul, the capital, by means of a program for youth management funded by U.S.A.I.D., and by 2018, she landed a job engaged on the re-election marketing campaign for Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani. From there, she grew to become the spokeswoman for the state-run electrical firm in Kabul. She had goals of finally working for president herself.

However because the Taliban pressed their relentless advance over the summer season, Ms. Khairkhwa started to have nightmares. “I dreamed that the Taliban got here to our workplace and our home,” she stated. She saved these visions to herself, apprehensive that telling anybody would possibly make them a actuality.

On Aug. 15, Ms. Khairkhwa was headed to the workplace when she obtained caught within the snarl of panicked visitors in Kabul. She stopped in a restaurant, uploaded a clip of the chaos that ended up on the information, and made her method residence.

“We didn’t imagine that America would depart Afghanistan on this state of affairs,” she stated. “That the Taliban would return or that Ghani would give up. However as soon as it occurred we had been shocked.”

Safiullah Padshah and Yaqoob Akbary contributed reporting.