The Taliban’s impressive tax collection is a reflection of its administrative power, which lessens the importance of humanitarian aid for its survival, says David Mansfield, an Afghanistan analyst. The group’s income from poppy cultivation and the drug trade, though still significant, has for years been dwarfed by revenue from taxing transit goods and fuel, according to a report released by the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think-tank. Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, centre, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for an international peace conference in Moscow in March. The Taliban arrived in Kabul with significant resources. “We don’t know if the centre of the Taliban will hold, but it sure seems a lot stronger than many of us thought it would be,” she adds.

One unknown is whether the Taliban central command that committed to reforms could keep the field commanders in line, says Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, associate professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. The Taliban has been clear on its objective of re-establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with a strict version of sharia law, and has ruled out holding elections. The second question is what kind of governance system they will establish,” says Adili, speaking from Kabul. “It remains to be seen if they enter negotiations to try and get consent from the society.

If they don’t go for inclusion, then that will be a lack of legitimacy from the start of their regime,” says Ali Yawar Adili, country director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. Yet in the chaos that followed the takeover of Kabul, it was unclear if the militants would shape a new government through consensus or force. Hours after rifle-carrying Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace, a spokesman for the group declared “war is over” in Afghanistan. “Their goal is implementing Islam, as they understand it, not develop a modern country.”

“The Taliban will govern the way they did before, with some modification,” says Husain Haqqani, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, another co-founder of the movement, is the Taliban’s political chief and is tipped to be president. Supreme leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, the “commander of the faithful”, served as the religious adviser to Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Omar. Taliban’s Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada is known as the “commander of the faithful”. Many of the movement’s current top leaders were in power when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when US forces toppled the regime following the September 11 attacks launched by al-Qaeda, an Islamist group with links to the Taliban. During a diplomatic offensive to regional powers in recent months, polished Taliban representatives made promises to respect women’s rights and rein in terror groups on Afghan soil.īut experts said that, despite promises of reform, Taliban rule could resemble the dark days of the 1990s.īack then, women’s rights were all but eliminated and cruel criminal punishments, including public executions, were the norm. The Taliban’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda had been obvious before the takeover of Kabul. “Life, property and honour of none shall be harmed but must be protected by the mujahideen,” says the Taliban’s Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen, the latest message from the Islamist extremists trying to assure Afghans that they will be safe. The Taliban has pledged to create an open and inclusive government after its fighters took control of Kabul, but most observers fear little has changed in 20 years and expect the swift return of repressive theocratic rule in Afghanistan.

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