the Taliban has been saying for several days now that people have nothing to fear in Kabul, and foreigners have nothing to fear, journalists would be protected, so would women. But the problem is that nobody believed them, which is why we are seeing these horrendous scenes at the airport, people trying to get out. And people are very doubtful that they will remain passive and not take revenge, not carry out revenge killings against, for example, soldiers, officers and people who have resisted the Taliban all this time. And the Taliban has to rebuild its credibility, because, remember, just before this takeover, there were months of assassinations taking place in Kabul of top officials, government officials, journalists, women, activists, that the Taliban were going out of their way to eliminate the educated class. And that created real fear and panic in the whole country, not just in Kabul. So, there’s this legacy of brutality, quite recent, which the Taliban has to mitigate in some form or the other.
Now, the next stage is obviously going to be humanitarian relief. I hope there’s going to be some help from donors who are going to bring in food and supplies, because there’s a chronic shortage of food, water, medicines and everything in Kabul right now. And, you know, business has stopped. Kabul was isolated for many days. All of the produce that
— source democracynow.org | Aug 16, 2021