Kabul fell on 15 August 2021 without a single shot fired to defend it. That collapse still stings: a government that had absorbed two decades of Western money and Afghan blood simply evaporated in a matter of hours.
It became the defining image of the Taliban’s return to power. Now, five years on, the anniversary raises a tougher question than the usual “what went wrong in 2021.” Has the Taliban actually managed to govern the country it took?
The record so far tells a story of consolidation without legitimacy. The Taliban tore down the republic’s institutions. Girls have been locked out of secondary school. Women have been pushed out of most jobs and public life, and guardianship rules now restrict where they can even travel, restrictions that are entering their fifth uninterrupted year.
Public floggings happen routinely. So does enforcement by morality police. On the diplomatic front, the movement is still largely unrecognized.
Even countries that have quietly opened channels with Kandahar, Russia among them, have stopped well short of full recognition. Economically, Afghanistan still leans on humanitarian aid, and its banking system remains largely cut off from the rest of the world.
What’s changed, and what hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention, is what’s happening inside the movement itself. Over the past year, reports have described a growing rift between supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who rules from Kandahar surrounded by hardline loyalists, and more pragmatic officials in the Kabul-based cabinet.
Those officials have pushed for softer policies on education and governance, largely without success. Leaked internal communications reportedly show Akhundzada himself warning that the movement could collapse under its own internal discord. Coming from the man who holds absolute authority, that’s a remarkable admission.
That discord has opened doors. In the north, Ahmad Massoud’s National Resistance Front has ramped up operations from the Panjshir Valley, reporting more recruits and more clashes with Taliban forces in Badakhshan and elsewhere.
The Afghanistan Freedom Front has claimed attacks in Herat against Taliban units and their foreign allies. Then in March, a new coalition emerged: the National Mobilization Front, built by youth activists and former security personnel from the north and east. It’s organizing against a backdrop of economic collapse and rising insurgent activity in the Hindu Kush.
Local uprisings have surfaced in several provinces. Defections from disillusioned Taliban fighters are said to be climbing too. None of these groups can yet threaten Kabul directly. But their staying power, and the way they’ve started coordinating, tells a story the Taliban’s own propaganda can’t paper over. Five years in, battlefield victory still hasn’t translated into durable political control.
This isn’t just an Afghan story. A Taliban that can’t govern is a Taliban that can’t guarantee the security commitments it made back in 2020, commitments that regional states, Pakistan very much included, have watched erode as cross-border militancy intensifies rather than fades. It also means the group’s internal fractures make its future far less certain than its confident public messaging would suggest.
None of this brings any comfort to Afghans living under these policies right now. Women shut out of classrooms and workplaces, journalists forced into exile, families squeezed by economic collapse: none of them find solace in reports of factional infighting in Kandahar.
Still, the honest assessment, five years later, isn’t one of a regime that has settled into stable, uncontested rule. It’s a movement straining to hold together what it seized in one chaotic August, and increasingly struggling to convince even its own ranks that it can.
As the anniversary approaches, that struggle deserves to be the story we tell. Not as triumphalism, but as an honest reckoning with where Afghanistan actually stands five years after the republic fell, and where its resistance, fragmented as it is, might still be able to take it.
Five Years On: A Regime That Never Quite Took Root
Kabul fell on 15 August 2021 without a single shot fired to defend it. That collapse still stings: a government that had absorbed two decades of Western money and Afghan blood simply evaporated in a matter of hours.
It became the defining image of the Taliban’s return to power. Now, five years on, the anniversary raises a tougher question than the usual “what went wrong in 2021.” Has the Taliban actually managed to govern the country it took?
The record so far tells a story of consolidation without legitimacy. The Taliban tore down the republic’s institutions. Girls have been locked out of secondary school. Women have been pushed out of most jobs and public life, and guardianship rules now restrict where they can even travel, restrictions that are entering their fifth uninterrupted year.
Public floggings happen routinely. So does enforcement by morality police. On the diplomatic front, the movement is still largely unrecognized.
Even countries that have quietly opened channels with Kandahar, Russia among them, have stopped well short of full recognition. Economically, Afghanistan still leans on humanitarian aid, and its banking system remains largely cut off from the rest of the world.
What’s changed, and what hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention, is what’s happening inside the movement itself. Over the past year, reports have described a growing rift between supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who rules from Kandahar surrounded by hardline loyalists, and more pragmatic officials in the Kabul-based cabinet.
Those officials have pushed for softer policies on education and governance, largely without success. Leaked internal communications reportedly show Akhundzada himself warning that the movement could collapse under its own internal discord. Coming from the man who holds absolute authority, that’s a remarkable admission.
That discord has opened doors. In the north, Ahmad Massoud’s National Resistance Front has ramped up operations from the Panjshir Valley, reporting more recruits and more clashes with Taliban forces in Badakhshan and elsewhere.
The Afghanistan Freedom Front has claimed attacks in Herat against Taliban units and their foreign allies. Then in March, a new coalition emerged: the National Mobilization Front, built by youth activists and former security personnel from the north and east. It’s organizing against a backdrop of economic collapse and rising insurgent activity in the Hindu Kush.
Local uprisings have surfaced in several provinces. Defections from disillusioned Taliban fighters are said to be climbing too. None of these groups can yet threaten Kabul directly. But their staying power, and the way they’ve started coordinating, tells a story the Taliban’s own propaganda can’t paper over. Five years in, battlefield victory still hasn’t translated into durable political control.
This isn’t just an Afghan story. A Taliban that can’t govern is a Taliban that can’t guarantee the security commitments it made back in 2020, commitments that regional states, Pakistan very much included, have watched erode as cross-border militancy intensifies rather than fades. It also means the group’s internal fractures make its future far less certain than its confident public messaging would suggest.
None of this brings any comfort to Afghans living under these policies right now. Women shut out of classrooms and workplaces, journalists forced into exile, families squeezed by economic collapse: none of them find solace in reports of factional infighting in Kandahar.
Still, the honest assessment, five years later, isn’t one of a regime that has settled into stable, uncontested rule. It’s a movement straining to hold together what it seized in one chaotic August, and increasingly struggling to convince even its own ranks that it can.
As the anniversary approaches, that struggle deserves to be the story we tell. Not as triumphalism, but as an honest reckoning with where Afghanistan actually stands five years after the republic fell, and where its resistance, fragmented as it is, might still be able to take it.
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