Afghan people walk the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, circa March 2025. After five years of rule, the Taliban’s hold on Afghanistan is stable. (Shutterstock/Tuzla)

The Taliban’s Second Five-Year Anniversary

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Although the Taliban’s Afghanistan is internationally isolated, it remains internally and externally unchallenged.

Five years ago this month, the Taliban stormed into Afghanistan’s capital after a 20-year insurgency and restored their pariah emirate. Over the five years since the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return, a plethora of experts—many who made a career out of Washington’s expedition to Afghanistan—debated whether or not the rule of the religious militant group would endure another year.

However, this year’s anniversary of the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan is particularly significant: it equals the lifespan of their first time running the country from September 1996 to November 2001.

But unlike their first five-year birthday, which roughly coincided with the September 11 attacks that triggered their inevitable overthrow two months later, the end of the reincarnated Taliban is nowhere on the horizon. Instead, their grip on Afghanistan is significantly firmer than before. What’s more, it is unlikely to loosen.

Why the Taliban Are Stronger Now Than in 1996–2001

There are several reasons why this emirate’s rule differs from the first.

First, the Taliban inherited a markedly different Afghanistan in 2021, compared to the one they seized 30 years ago. In 1996, the country was in chaos. Following a devastating decade of Soviet occupation, Afghanistan was scarred by a brutal civil war between the victorious Mujahideen factions scrambling for power. Beyond the rockets that reduced Afghan cities to rubble, the civil war subjected Afghans to ethnic and gender-motivated violence. The conventional wisdom often conveniently omits that the Taliban’s early formation and draconian restrictions on women were a reaction to the rape, abduction, assault, and murder of this period.

This was not the case in 2021. After 20 years of Western-backed nation-building, Afghans were more exposed to the global village. The country maintained a flawed democracy with presidential and parliamentary elections. Kabul hosted the American University of Afghanistan with liberal arts programs, a free press and media published critical opinion articles, hosted controversial debates, dubbed scandalous Turkish dramas, and aired reality singing contests. Scores of educated students graduated from secondary school and won university scholarships abroad. The latter, in particular, provided Afghans with a window into how other Muslim societies balance reform and religion.

Second, today’s Taliban are operating in a markedly different international system. Their first rule emerged at the peak of the post-Cold War unipolar moment and Pax Americana, leaving the group with no alternative superpower to engage with other than the United States for legitimacy, humanitarian aid, or economic support. Today, the return of multipolarity to the international system has given the new Taliban room to court patrons in Moscow and Beijing.

The turn in the Taliban’s foreign relations is drastic. During their first period in power, the movement was less........

© The National Interest