The Taliban Returns

What happened next?

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops.

Under their harsh rule, they have cracked down on women’s rights and neglected basic services. Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan Deobandi Islamic scholar, cleric, and jurist who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and came to power with its victory over U.S.-backed forces in the 2001–2021 war.

Foreign trade with Afghanistan has fallen since the takeover. Despite a decline in imports, however, most of the country’s revenue came from taxes at border crossings. Additionally, it has increased coal exports to Pakistan. The Taliban government’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 was $2.6 billion.

The previous government had a budget of around $6 billion in 2021.Prior to the takeover, the Taliban primarily earned revenue through criminal activities, including opium poppy cultivation, drug trafficking, extortion of local businesses, and kidnapping, according to the UN monitoring group.

In 2021, Afghanistan accounted for 86 percent of the world’s illicit opium production. However, in April 2022, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation. The Taliban threaten Afghans’ civil and political rights enshrined in the constitution created by the U.S.-backed government.

Since regaining control, the Taliban have taken actions reminiscent of their brutal rule in the late 1990s. They have also taken over US bases and have also taken over US bases and have also taken their left behind army vehicles and planes like C180.

Two years after their takeover of Afghanistan, through more than 50 edicts, orders, and restrictions, the Taliban have systematically imposed a set of meticulously constructed policies of inequality that impact every part of a woman's life, that regulate where a woman can go and how she should dress.