What it's like to live in a town where everything is controlled by the Taliban

[brooklynite]

CNN

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Women are banned from leaving their homes without a male companion and nobody dares ask about schooling for girls living here.

Taxation, that's sometimes fair and often on the rich but compulsory, can be prey to rival taxmen and lead to beatings and imprisonment for non-payment.

Justice is dispensed in mobile courts with adulterers jailed or killed and some reoffending thieves hanged in public. Bread, clothing and even the occasional smartphone are gifts for fighters.

This is 2021, in a Taliban stronghold: Musa Qala, a town in Helmand province that dozens of Americans, British and Afghan soldiers died fighting for over nearly two decades.

[maxrandb]

1. I thought this was going to be a story about Chippewa, PA

[Rustyeye77]

2. I expect someone to to say...

‘Who are we to judge ?’

[snowybirdie]

3. There are similar restrictions for women in Saudi Arabia

yet they've been allies for years. The mid East customs are deplorable. We need to change them by persuasion, not force. I'm tired of sending my grandson over there where nothing has changed in 20 years. Time to try something new.

[brooklynite]

4. Afghanistan is far worse...

[AZProgressive]

5. Are you sure?

Most of this comes from Saudi Arabia. Before 9/11 Saudi Arabia was one of the few countries to officially recognize the Taliban controlled government.

[Voltaire2]

6. maybe if we kill a lot of people there for another 20 years it will get better?