Rulers of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement have held a military parade involving packs of motorbikes at a former US “linchpin” base since seizing power in the country three years ago.
Taliban parade
Taliban forces towed Soviet-era tanks as well as US-made armoured vehicles while waving the black and white flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Bagram today.
Chinese and Iranian diplomats were among hundreds of people gathered for the parade at the former base, which for two decades served as the linchpin of US-led operations against the Taliban.
Motorbikes strapped with yellow canisters, often used to carry homemade bombs during conflicts, rode past the assembled officials. Helicopters and fighter jets flew over a base where Taliban fighters were once imprisoned, about 25 miles north of Kabul.
Taliban forces seized the capital on August 15, 2021 after the US-backed government collapsed and its leaders fled into exile. The anniversary is marked a day earlier on the Afghan calendar. The Taliban took to the streets for the first time, displaying dozens of armoured vehicles and US-made weapons during victory parades on September 1, 2021.
One event in the southern city of Kandahar even featured a Black Hawk helicopter flying a Taliban flag.
The parades of equipment seized from Afghan troops during the group’s takeover of Afghanistan came just hours after US President Joe Biden defended his decision to end two decades of American presence in the country.
Islamist hardliners celebrated the final withdrawal of US troops as a historic victory after capturing all but one of the country’s 34 provinces in a two-week offensive. Their government is now unrecognised by any state, and restrictions imposed on women bear the brunt of a policy dubbed ‘gender apartheid’ by the United Nations.
UNESCO is sounding the alarm
The Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling by banning it, a United Nations agency said on Thursday. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where secondary and higher education for girls is banned.
The Taliban have banned education for girls above the sixth grade because they say it does not conform to their interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law. They have not banned education for boys and have no intention of taking the steps necessary to reopen classrooms and campuses for girls and women.
UNESCO said at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since they took power in the country, 300,000 more than the previous count in April 2023, with more girls reaching the age of 12 each year. UNESCO said:
“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls.”
The Taliban did not respond to a request for comment.
Future of an entire generation is now at risk
Access to primary education has also fallen since the Taliban took power in August 2021, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, according to UNESCO.
The UN agency warned that the authorities had “virtually wiped out” two decades of sustained progress in education in Afghanistan. “The future of an entire generation is now at risk,” the agency added.
According to the agency, 5.7 million girls and boys will be in primary school in Afghanistan in 2022, down from 6.8 million in 2019. UNESCO said the drop in enrolment was due to the Taliban’s decision to ban female teachers from teaching boys, but could also be due to parents’ lack of incentive to send their children to school in an increasingly tough economic climate.
