Afghanistan Marks One Year Since The Taliban Seizes Power While An Explosion Rocks Its Capital, Kabul.

After the Taliban seizes control of Afghanistan after 40 years of foreign occupation the country run into multitudes of social, economic and political problems as they run out of funds to keep the country afloat. In the midst of such a crisis, Kabul was rocked by a massive explosion in a mosque killing at least 20, Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) claimed responsibility for the attack. 

After approximately 40 years of foreign occupation, Afghanistan is in the hands of the same forces that the US and its allies have been fighting against, The Taliban. And even though Afghanistan has been recognised by the international community and the United Nations, things are actually much worse than it seems.

The country’s economic system has collapsed pushing millions of Afghans into poverty and starvation as foreign aid has slowed down to a crawl also as some Taliban spokespeople said that many of their foreign assets are still frozen and hence they cannot transact those amounts for the welfare of the society. 

Even after the repeated request to the US Department of Treasury to unfreeze those accounts, the US Department of Treasury has refused to comply since those accounts are directly linked to terror networks that have been long connected to Al-Queda terror plots that the US has been trying to dismantle for years.

Earlier this year, the UN appealed for 4.4 Billion dollars as foreign aid for Afghanistan. As of now, Afghanistan has received 1.8 Billion dollars and is still waiting for the remaining 2.6 Billion dollars, but until then Afghanistan has also created a massive economic gap. Almost 35 million people are living in poverty and 6.6 million have been classified as below the poverty line or emergency level fearing a nationwide famine. 

In the midst of this immense economic crisis, a Kabul mosque was rocked by a massive explosion claiming at least 20 lives. Islamic State of Khorasan Province has accepted the responsibility for the attack. But this is not the first attack by ISIS on Afghanistan. ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for 1000s of attacks previously, especially while targeting the minorities of the country. While the new Taliban leadership did promise that the minorities will be protected, little has been done. Therefore while the country is going through an economic freefall, the Taliban also has a massive security issue, even though it can be an intentional overseeing of the issue since the Taliban has historically been recorded to have exploited and murdered other minorities. 

But a country without a unifying constitution, unstructured governance, an economy built on poverty and a country riddled with terrorism, Afghanistan has a long list of problems to solve before it can even start to have a modern way of life. Even though Afghanistan is going to carry the political baggage of foreign occupation for the next 100 years.