Life and geopolitics in Afghanistan - first person accounts

Background (Rahul Deans): I used to do business in Afghanistan some 25 years ago. At the time, `business’ in Afghanistan consisted of importing goods from Dubai, into Afghanistan, at zero duty and smuggling it into Iran and Pakistan, which taxed those imports heavily. Control of the border crossings and the smuggling business was heavily contested, between various warlords, as was the other business in Afghanistan – opium cultivation and smuggling out of Afghanistan. To me, that was what much of Afghanistan’s civil war was about.   

In more recent times, I found that every account of the situation in Afghanistan was by reporters who had never been to Afghanistan and were relying on old cliches to describe the situation. To give a
first-person view, as I did in my recent blogpost on Myanmar, I had invited an old contact, a person
from the Afghan army, who had been in intelligence and was unable to leave he country after the
Taliban takeover. Unfortunately, he and his social media account appears to have disappeared. Subsequently, another officer from the Afghan special forces reached out. I have featured his story in a separate post: https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2025/07/fighting-taliban-and-betrayal-afghan.html

To my good fortune, a young medical student in Kabul, with an interest in International affairs, then contacted me me, to have his voice heard. This is his story. `A’ has to remain anonymous, as any criticism of the Taliban regime can result in that person’s death.
He has chosen to express himself in his limited English. (Only grammar has been  edited)

Update: 15 Aug 2025. Apart from India's independence, this was also the day Kabul fell to the Taliban, after the US abandoned the country. I am therefore publishing the story of a brave Afghan girl, imprisoned by the Taliban and recently freed, who has shared her story. She is a budding poet and I have included her story at the end of this account.   

The medical student:

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Nowadays life in Afghanistan is bad, basically in economy aspect, even they decreased the amount of government employees severely. They fired over 100000 school employees couple of months ago. You know over here people are trying their best to just escape from hunger, not like other countries to make a good life or something, there are some differences between Taliban and pervious govt like the amount thefts has decreased very much. There was two to three bombing around Afghanistan every day in the previous govt, but we don't have such things now, however people don't really care about these, they care about money to release them from poverty and hunger and women education, as you know they closed schools for girls. Taliban increased the water and electricity prices. They collect wheat from the farmers during harvesting time which we didn't have in the previous govt.

Life inside and outside Kabul is quite different, many people who live in Kabul, have a good economic condition, so that they afford living there but there are districts, provinces that people are very poor with very low life quality, no good hospitality, no good education, no chance for making good money to live better. In Kabul, 90% of people I guess, know nothing about technology, far behind where the world is now.

The difference between Taliban and previous government - One that I noticed, is they decreased road construction outside Kabul and increased it inside. I don't know whether you Know Panjshare, a province of Afghanistan it's was very good place in previous govt, now there is very much restrictions there, they are annoying and make people of there to leave their province. Since Masood’s son once attacked from Panjshare, they killed innocent people a lot.

If we look at what most leaders of Taliban say they really see Pakistan as an enemy, you might have heard of some attacks of Taliban and Pakistan, however most people believe they are like members or co-workers, Pakistan might support Afghan Taliban, as some people say, `we saw Pakistani soldiers in Taliban's army’.

I think Afghan Taliban wants a good relationship with Iran and India, I didn't hear anything about India from Taliban, we saw Taliban say in the Iran Israel fight, that they were supporting Iran.

From my own point of view there is no role for India in Afghanistan.

On Pashtun dominance in Afghanistan
In general, the relationship between Pashtun and other ethnic groups are very bad. Since the Taliban takeover, I met people who were Tajiks they said when you enter an office and you can't speak Pashto they won't solve your problem and no one would listen to you. A Pashtun who is working in the labour and social affairs office said they are dropping other ethnic groups out of jobs and filling the gaps with Pashtuns. They removed Persian request sheets from most of government offices and replaced them with the Pashto version of it. They are destroying old forms in Persian after translating them to Pashto. Many people say that if you apply for a job, you will first be asked in the interview if you are Pathans or not. If you can't speak Pashto they won't even let you in.

Most people in Taliban's government are Pashtun. What I mean by this is they didn't give important jobs for other ethnic groups in Afghanistan. A Tajik or Hazara might be a normal teacher, but they cannot become head of Kabul university, Pashtuns are taking all the power jobs in the government and didn't give anything to other ethnic groups.

I am in Afghanistan and I know how it feels to live here. People are living in a bad situation, but the reality is no one wants to get into trouble. They don't have any further wishes, they want to be alive and that’s all,

On a Pashtun nation (comprising parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan)
There not such feelings for having a Pashtun nation in general, they might be people who talk about such a thing. I think it is impossible though, people won't let them. The point is if Pashto and Pathans are 45-50% then why would they raise their children to learn Persian instead of Pashto? I am sorry but according to what I've seen during school is that Pashto is dead language, whether they claim we 45-50% of Afghanistan society or not they will adopt Persian.

Factions in Afghanistan
There is ISKP (Islamic state of Khorasan Province). If someone is a member of this they would like it, not because they are right or wrong, but because of their benefits from them. But others who are not members they really hate them and want to get rid them, me personally I don't like them.
They really are working actively, perhaps 20-30% of people in the area I am living are belonging to this branch, I don't know whether they have sort of salary or something.

The Taliban have two groups – Haqqani and Kandahari (also called Sirajuddin & Hibattullah groups)
About Haqqani and Kandahari groups, there are conflicts between them, a friend of mine who's working in ministry of public health he said to me " if anyone noticed that you are in Haqqani group they will just dig your grave (you will lose your job as soon as possible). One thing is the Kandahari group is superior to Haqqani group. They really are running powerful ministries. I think there will be an inner war between them, but when, God knows better

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Status of the Hazaras (the largest minority, which is Shia)
Hazara's condition changed (since the Taliban takeover), but there is a good change and a bad one. The good change is they do not have bombing anymore, like almost zero. And the bad one is that as you may know Hazara ethics have their own culture, they celebrate days of Ashora is (عاشورا), now Taliban are annoying they and not letting them to perform that celebration, you might not notice what I said in Kabul, because it would make a bad identity for Taliban, but they really don't allow people in rural areas to perform that.

Deportation of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran
It's very sad to talk about this, both countries asked Afghan employees to leave the country. (1.2 million from Iran and 320,000 from Pakistan). Even if you are owning a Passport and Visa, they just want you to leave and no one really cares about that. about helping them - as I am a university student I go to Kabul two to three times a week and I am seeing people who just came from Iran or Pakistan, Taliban's government had prepared free transportation for them, and maybe UN is giving them 8000 AFG per family when enter Afghanistan. People might be angry about what Iran or Pakistan did to them, but to be honest as they too are suffering from unemployment and lack of money, they don't care how you treat them, but just help them make a few pennies so that they can feed their families. Personally, I hate Iran and Pakistan.

Water situation with Pakistan: You may know Tetsu Nakamura he was a good man he tried to help us by maintaining our water and to use it for agriculture and other purposes, unfortunately they killed him (in 2019). Many people believe Pakistan killed him, because a big portion of Afghanistan water end up to be in Pakistan and Pakistan didn't want to lose that.

On drugs: I didn't hear much about it, but I saw many news about which said Taliban asked people who were planting poppy, to plant wheat, or something beneficial and do not plant poppy.
What I guess, is places that people planting poppy are far from capital, mostly near to borders. Media and government cannot reach out, not a big difference between them and previous government.

Relations with the US and China:
There is a big difference between then and now. In the past, USA had a clear image in Afghanistan, they were working actively, but now China has a good image, China now is taking contracts from Mines all over country, specially Gold mines in northern parts of the country, China facilitates everything from Afghan's business people, and everyone can get Visas very easy. People really hate USA, as Trump is standing for Afghanistan deportation. This makes our situation worse. People blame the USA for our situation and they have the right to do so.

I am 21 years old, I am studying medicine in Kabul medical university. I want to leave, as I said economy is not good here. The reason i want to leave is I love business and entrepreneurship and I want build business. Because people do not have knowledge and also power to support entrepreneurs, I can't do anything here. What I found from today's Afghanistan market, we severely need an Alibaba like company for delivery and communication between small and big businesses and also a reliable payment system that people can pay their money online. That way way we could develop they both, because they are complementary to each other. But leave it, I cannot do it for now.

The context of this story:

I asked him about water in the context of the Indus water treaty which I separately blogged about.
Just like the IWT, Pakistan gets 80% of the water from the 9 rivers rising in Afghanistan. They do not want to negotiate a water sharing treaty. India has built the Salma dam in Afghanistan, the only major dam project in recent years. A Taliban delegation was recently in India to seek our help in the construction of more dams. Irrespective of ideological differences, the Taliban recognise that water is their most important resource, they are getting a bad deal from Pak on water sharing and India is best placed to help them. 

I write that smuggling was the biggest source of revenue for the Taliban govt. Officially it is foreign aid. Because there was a threat to stop all foreign aid after the Taliban takeover in 2020 and because the Taliban wanted to show that they were against drugs, they officially banned the cultivation of the Opium poppy in April ‘22. Some of the aid was contingent on reducing Opium cultivation. Production of the Opium poppy in 2024 was 93% lower than 2021 (though 30% higher than in 2023). While a fall of this magnitude, for two consecutive years, has happened for the first time in Afghanistan, it is deceptive for the following reasons:

There were high stocks, both with Afghan trader/exporters (who are often rival warlords) and farmers, which were released into the market once prices started increasing. These stocks are now depleting and the price of Opium has increased from $ 100/ kg to $ 750, which is why opium production has started increasing – albeit far below 2022 levels.  

The centre of Opium production has shifted from the South West of Afghanistan to the North West, which is less easy to monitor and where the area is not under the control of the Taliban and populated by a large non-Pashtun population. With the Pak-Afghan border fenced and more heavily guarded, the traditional smuggling route into Pakistan has been affected. Money from this route was earned by tribal leaders on both sides of the border. On the Afghan side they were usually affiliated to the Taliban and on the Pak side, it would be people from the same tribe (e.g. Meshud, Wazir, Afridi), as well as the Pak army, who facilitates the trade. Drug money was also one of the causes of conflict between Pashtun tribes in Pak and the Pak army.  

Opium has been replaced by Methamphetamine. The ephedra plant, from where Meth is made, grows naturally in Afghanistan (unlike other countries with meth labs). Meth labs, which convert
the plant to Meth, are easy to set up and operate and difficult to detect. While Opium is haram in Islam and officially banned by the Taliban, there appears to be no such stricture for Methamphetamine. Meth prices are a third of the 2022 levels, while opium prices have increased seven times (to the same level as Meth). Afghanistan is believed to the largest producer of meth currently. A consequence has been a surge in crystal meth addiction in Pakistan (where there are over seven million known drug addicts). Most addicts seeking treatment in clinics in Pakistan are now addicted to crystal meth - earlier it was Cannabis, Opium & Heroin.  While there is a wealth of information on Opium and its derivatives in Afghanistan, there is far less data on Methamphetamine.
Methamphetamines may soon be the biggest source of income for the Taliban govt.

In a separate blogpost, I have a first person account from an Afghan Special forces officer, on 
fighting the Taliban and the betrayal by the US.
Fighting the Taliban. A soldier's story  

The Afghan girl's story:

This is the story of a young girl in Mazar-e-Sharif (name withheld at her request), who is living under Taliban rule and wanted to share her story. She is a budding poet and her writing style reflects that. She has also included her poem. While she can write some English, she has written in Persian, from where it has been translated.

While my blog writes about geopolitics, I would like to include this poem to salute this young lady who is surviving under a brutal regime and wants to be heard.
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The dusty wind had filled the alleys of Mazar-i-Sharif;
a place where the muted cries of war hid among broken walls and crumbling bricks.
A girl stood there, alone, with eyes fixed bitterly on the hardships of life;
her gaze, like a shattered mirror, full of cracks of pain and memories she never wished to recall.
Her name was Marwa — a girl who had lost her dreams amidst the ruins of her destroyed home,
but who never surrendered.

The voice of her father, who had disappeared years ago in the cold winds of Mazar,
still rang in her ears:
"Nothing can stop you."
But the world was darker than these words could brighten.

Girls’ schools had been shut down, and the roads were filled with shadows that made it hard to breathe.
Marwa knew that every step she took could be her last,
but she could not stop reading books —
that tiny window with a view of freedom inside the iron cage around her.

At night, under dim light, her hands trembled as she turned the pages;
each word was a fresh wound on her already wounded heart,
yet also a lamp in the endless darkness.
Her mother, eyes brimming with tears, watched her from the corner of the room,
wishing she could take away her daughter’s pain.

One day, the sound of gunfire came closer.
Marwa knew this was not a time to run — it was a time to stand.
With a pen carved from the depths of her suffering, she wrote;
she wrote to be the voice of silent girls whose cries reached no one.
When the publisher’s letter arrived, her tears of joy and sorrow mingled:
"You are our voice."
Marwa understood that although darkness still ruled the world,
her light could make cracks in that blackness.

She stood, fearless, against the dark winds of fate,
with a heart that never gave up.
Every morning she awoke to the silent sound of the alleys,
as if time had stopped and each moment passed full of waiting and fear.
The heavy footsteps of soldiers and distant explosions
had become the bitter soundtrack of her days.

Under the yellow glow of an oil lamp, she wrote —
words like daggers into the silence that surrounded her life.
Her mother placed trembling hands on her daughter’s shoulders and, with a broken voice, said:
"Marwa, you are the strongest star in these dark nights."

In her solitude, Marwa sometimes doubted:
Would her voice truly be heard?
Could she bring the dreams of the nameless girls of this city to the world?

One day, walking among the ruins of a school that had once been full of laughter,
she saw broken walls and childish drawings on the blackboard —
each telling a story of hope and despair.
Right there, she decided never to be alone again.
Together with a few other girls — each with her own story of pain and resistance —
they gathered, wrote, read, and tried to make their voices louder.
Each word, each sentence, was a bridge flying toward freedom.

But their enemies did not sit still;
threats, arrests, and long nights in darkness became part of their daily life.
Many nights, in silence, Marwa would look at the sky with a heart full of fear and hope, whispering:
"If we do not stand, who will?"
And with that faith, she would grip her pen tightly and write —
writing until their voices were heard,
until the world knew that even in the blackest nights, there is a light that cannot be extinguished.

Marwa passed her days and nights between fear and hope.
With each passing day, the weight of oppression and violence pressed harder on her soul,
but she dreamed of a better future more than ever.

One cold winter morning, while thick fog still covered the roads,
news came that armed forces were searching for those
who had opposed the closing of schools and educational restrictions.
Marwa’s heart raced at the news,
but fear gave way to determination.

She understood that standing against oppression meant liberation —
even if the price was prison or her life.
In those days, she decided to write the story of her life —
a story that would be the voice of thousands of girls suffering in silence.

Under the shelter of night, while everyone slept,
she took up her pen and began to write.
Her words were a mixture of pain, hope, and anger;
each one a spark in the darkness of this land.

But fate placed a new challenge in her path.
One night, as she was writing,
the sound of a door breaking echoed through the house,
and men with stern faces entered.

"We are arresting you for illegal activities,"
one of them said coldly and mercilessly.

Marwa, heart filled with fear but eyes ablaze, stood firm.
In that moment, she realized this was the beginning of a road she must walk —
perhaps the hardest test of her life.

In the cold, damp prison cells, she was not alone;
the voices of her fellow inmates told the same shared story of pain and resistance.
There she understood: every woman who stands is an arrow to the heart of tyranny,
and every word she writes is a lamp in the night.

So she wrote again.
She sent her letters and memories outside,
lighting hope in others’ hearts,
becoming a light in the darkness that could not be put out.

In the darkness of prison, Marwa kept her spirit alive.
Every day, every moment, she held onto her pen.
Her writings, like small fragments of light,
passed through cold walls and barbed wire,
reaching those who had not forgotten hope.

In her small, cramped cell,
she replayed memories of her home in Mazar-i-Sharif —
her father’s gentle voice,
her mother’s loving gaze,
and the dusty alleys that had once been full of life.
Now everything had taken on a cold, gray hue.

Despite all the hardships, she knew she must keep resisting —
for herself, and for the girls whose voices had been stifled in their throats.
Whenever the guards’ footsteps echoed through the hall,
Marwa would whisper to herself:
"Nothing can stop me."

In her solitude, Marwa sometimes doubted:
Would her voice truly be heard?
Could she bring the dreams of the nameless girls of this city to the world?

Months passed, and at last the day of freedom came —
the day Marwa walked out of prison,
not only as a free woman,
but as a powerful voice for millions of Afghan girls.

With trembling hands but a heart full of hope,
she stepped into a world still full of shadows,
but where glimpses of liberation and change could be seen.

Now more than ever, Marwa wanted to write,
to speak, and to make sure no voice was silenced.
And that day, it was not only Marwa’s story,
but the story of thousands of Afghan girls
that reached the ears of the world —
a story of resistance, of unbreakable spirit,
and of a light that no darkness can extinguish.

Her poem and this story is in a separate blogpost:
An Afghan girl's poem

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Further reading:

UN report on drugs in Afghanistan

Instability in Afghanistan