Taliban firmly in control in Afghanistan 25 years after US-led invasion to oust them

Dr. Nigar Nangrahari was on a night shift in a Kabul hospital when the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan began 25 years ago - an event that would shape her and her country's future for decades to come.

Video from 2022 above: Afghan girls face uncertain future about education


As she walked home the next morning, Nangrahari saw Kabul residents taking revenge on members of the Taliban, whose harsh, repressive rule had seen public stonings, limb amputations of alleged criminals and women obliterated from public life.

 Along the way, I saw ordinary people killing anyone they caught who was a Taliban member. I witnessed with my own eyes the people of Kabul capturing and killing Taliban fighters. Some had climbed trees to hide,  she said.

Afraid of what was to come, Nangrahari and her family stayed home for about a month. Eventually, she was called back to the hospital and returned to work as an obstetrician-gynecologist. She no longer had to wear a burqa in the street.

 They granted us freedom - but not the kind that Afghans could truly benefit from,  said Nangrahari, 58.

Afghanistan is a deeply conservative Muslim society, and the U.S. culture that came with the American presence in the country often rankled some segments of society.

 Afghans should neither be completely unrestricted nor subjected to the kind of severe constraints imposed by the Taliban,  she said.  There needs to be a moderate balance. 



A bitter legacy

Under U.S. President George W. Bush, the American-led coalition launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the stated goal of dismantling al-Qaida, the terrorist organization whose leader, Osama bin Laden, had orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States from his base in Afghanistan.

The invasion was to mark the start of a 20-year war that killed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians, along with thousands of coalition service members, U.S. contractors, aid workers and journalists.

The legacy of that war, and of the successive U.S.-supported Afghan governments
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