‘Whatever horrors they do, they do in secret’
At the police headquarters compound in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a large crowd waited in front of a wire mesh door. The entrance was guarded by a young Taliban fighter with long shaggy hair and a beard, who sat on a broken plastic chair. Beside him was a large pile of shoes and flip-flops belonging to those who had been admitted to meet the newly appointed Taliban police chief.
It was mid-October 2021, seven weeks since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Taliban were in charge. In a large office, Abu Idrees, the police chief – who has since been promoted to deputy governor of Balkh province, of which Mazar is the capital – sat on a sofa, shunning the large desk that stretched nearly the width of the room, which had been a symbol of authority of the previous regime. Short and stocky, with broad shoulders and a big head wrapped in a black turban, he was flanked by his deputies and sub-commanders.
Throughout the day, men – and there were only men – entered the room, to squat on the floor in front of Abu Idrees. In hushed voices, they pleaded their cases, answered summons or pledged their undying support to the Taliban. In theory, anyone could demand an audience, something unheard of under the previous government, when people had to pay bribes and pull strings to see even a low-ranking police officer, let alone the chief.
Mazar-i-Sharif sits on some of the most important trade routes in the region. The northern part of the province borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Whoever rules Mazar controls its roads and custom revenues, official and unofficial. Mazar is surrounded by fertile agricultural lands, watered by rivers that rise in the central and western highlands and feed an ancient network of irrigation canals. These lands were spared the ravages of the Afghan civil wars of the 80s and 90s. The region produces cotton, flax seed oil, melons, Karakul wool and what locals say is the best hashish in Afghanistan.
The severe economic crisis that followed the Taliban takeover has put half of the population of Afghanistan at risk of famine, according to the UN. When the warlords who controlled the region and their business associates fled to Uzbekistan, the UAE and Turkey, they left behind government employees who had not received their meagre salaries for months.
Most of the cases brought to the police chief that October morning concerned former government employees, who complained that the Taliban had confiscated their property when they entered the city. One group wanted to settle a case that had been languishing in government courts for months, mired in bureaucracy and demands for bribes. A man from the Union of the Owners of
