On Sunday, about 1,500 Taliban supporters gathered in a wide field north of Kabul for a show of strength as they consolidate their control of Afghanistan.
At Kohdaman settlement, on the steep outskirts of the capital, a crowd of mostly men and boys listened to lectures by top Taliban officials and commanders.
The demonstration was the first of its type in the capital since the Islamist group took control of the country during a rapid onslaught seven weeks ago.
The speakers addressed an audience seated in rows of seats under awnings, flanked by white and black Taliban banners and militants in combat gear wielding assault rifles.
As the ceremony progressed, more and more supporters showed up, leaving several hundred people sitting in chairs in the midday sun to watch.
The deputy minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Mawlawi Muslim Haqqani, praised the Islamist hardliners’ coup, declaring Christians and Westerners defeated.
A group of men chanted anti-American slogans, with one telling the audience to “honor elders” because they were the “mujahids who fought the Soviets” in the 1980s.
The Taliban’s win, according to a speaker from nearby Mir Bacha Kot named Rahmatullah, was “the result of those youths who stood in queues to register for suicide attacks.”
A procession of fighters holding flags and weaponry, including rocket launchers, walked around the crowd to start things off.
Some of the mostly unarmed supporters wore red or white Taliban headbands, while others held homemade placards.
From the side of the stage, tribal elders sat cross-legged and observed.
As thousands arrived, music celebrating the Taliban’s triumphs reverberated across the location, guarded by dozens of heavily armed fighters dressed in military combat fatigues.
“America is defeated, impossible, impossible — but possible!” one song said.
Some chanted pro-Taliban slogans as they drove down the dusty road on pick-up trucks to the site, as others shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) when they walked into the shaded area in front of the stage.
Women’s Protests
A big banner honoring a fallen Taliban commander and expressing the “support of the people of Kohdaman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in the action of liberating the country” was draped across the road while roughly ten armed men lined the road leading to the township.
The Taliban attacked a modest women’s rights march in eastern Kabul last Thursday, firing rounds into the air to disperse protesters.
The women protestors were then forced back by gunmen as they attempted to continue the demonstration, while a foreign journalist was shot with a rifle and prevented from filming.
Isolated anti-Taliban rallies — with women at the forefront — were staged in cities around the country after the group seized power, including in the western city of Herat where two people were shot dead.
But protests have dwindled since the government issued an order banning demonstrations that did not have prior authorisation, warning of “severe legal action” for violators.
The handful that have gone ahead have been criticised as carefully orchestrated publicity stunts, including a rally at a Kabul university where hundreds of fully veiled women professed support for the new regime.
