How safe is Afghanistan under the Taliban?

7 comments

1. **Submission Statement**: The Taliban’s crackdown on opium has led to a significant portion of the rural population not having a source of income to support themselves. Sirajuddin Haqqani, someone believed to have been behind numerous terror attacks prior to the Taliban takeover, is now the one in charge of security matters.

   Malnourishment is on the rise and women’s rights are still being suppressed. Amongst these conditions, the Taliban is claiming it’s safe for Afghanis to return and Pakistan + Iran have started deportations of Afghanis.

2. For who? For women it’s systemic slavery, so so far we have a 50% kidnapping/enslavement/assault rate across the entire population, and that’s not even talking about other regular crime & violence.

3. Not safe at all because Afghanistan still hasn’t changed. It’s not a country that unifies behind one central power.

   Typically, Afghans just aren’t super nationalistic, they’re loyal to their ethnic group or familial ties. The Taliban only represent one specific ethnic group (Pashtuns). So most non-Pashtun Afghans are likely not going to work with them, or will actively subvert them.

   Then you factor in the Taliban’s contentious relationship with ISIS, their deteriorating relations with Pakistan, plus the fact that the Taliban really have nowhere near the manpower to patrol/secure the whole country and you have a recipe for instability – even if you’re a Taliban supporter in Taliban strongholds.

4. How likely is it for the Taliban to integrate within the world economy? It’s hard to imagine they can play well with others, but without the opium trade their economic future is rather bleak

5. There’s no petty crime because there’s probably nothing to steal. It is relatively safe for women because they cannot go out in public, without a male relative. For people doing any kind of business, the regular payoff to your local warlord is the cost of doing business and not extortion.

6. For who, pretty much a blanket statement, this is Reddit!

7. I mean, I wouldn’t take a mini-holiday there or anything. I also wouldn’t have a connecting flight or probably get within a few miles of the border, y’know, just in case.

   The country has become largely isolated again, and demographic and economic data are pretty hard to come by. In terms of safety, it’s a pretty safe bet that it ranks about the same as Trump likes to describe Los Angeles at the moment… but it actually is that bad. If you’re a woman, it’s worse, except as someone else noted apart from what is likely to be ritualistic spousal rape on the regular, you don’t have to worry about the outside world since it’s forbidden for you to even go outside of your own home without a male relative.

   Afghanistan is in a very bad way, and honestly, it’s likely to stay that way for a very long time. I believe the first and only international anything they participated in since the Taliban came back into power was the UN Climate Change Conference late last year. Most, if not all, other countries have expelled their diplomats and citizens. Zero countries have formally recognized the new nation state. Their contact with other nations is limited at best.

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