“Why the Afghans Did Not Fight”

In the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan, where resistance to the return of the Taliban took its last stand this summer, odds were never favorable. Food was scarce, as was ammunition. These days, resistance is trying to regroup and find its footing, from neighboring Tajikistan, though pockets of defiance continue in the two dozen tributaries to the main valley. This may not amount to much, or it may be a harbinger of things to come in the rest of Afghanistan.

The same liminality blankets the country. Reporting from inside Afghanistan is often contradictory, but on the streets of major cities, there is talk of a budding sense of security after years of war — at least for some people. There are also expulsions in places like Daikundi province, where the Taliban two weeks ago evicted more than four hundred families. The relative calm in the cities may be momentary, as the Taliban continue to cement their power, within their own factions and among the Afghan people — in both cases, with intimidation, with force, and by curtailing people’s basic freedoms.

There is one rare window on what is happening, as it happens, in Afghanistan: the nightly live feeds