In a dusty fix of land close to the Helmand stream, along what used to be one of the forefronts of the conflict, two high school young men are secured in a hug, attempting to wrestle each other to the ground. Sitting in a wide circle, observers look on enthusiastically as the afternoon light darkens.
We're in Sangin area in southern Afghanistan, scene of probably the deadliest conflicts of the beyond twenty years. A significant part of the town is still rubble, however various houses are being reconstructed as occupants get back, enjoying their first taste of harmony in quite a while.
There are no ladies among the group: in this profoundly safe piece of the nation, they're to a great extent kept in secret. Many here upheld the Taliban's insurrection against the previous Afghan government and US-drove powers that upheld it, while others are basically feeling better the savagery that tormented their lives has at long last reached a conclusion.
"Life is awesome now, individuals are cheerful," says Lalai, who has coordinated the wrestling match. "Everything looks great," tolls in another man.
Everybody you address here has been impacted by the conflict. "You won't find a solitary home in that frame of mind without something like a few family members martyred," Lalai tells us.
Numerous Afghans have a profoundly sad outlook on where the nation is being taken in by the Taliban. In any case, in rustic regions, especially in the south and east - overwhelmed by the Pashtun identity - there are numerous other people who either support the Taliban or who feel life subject to their authority is desirable over life at war.
Tokens of the contention are wherever in Sangin: the garbage of homes straightened by US or Afghan government airstrikes, as well as the scars out and about prompting Helmand's capital Lashkar Gah, left by Taliban bombs.
Inside Lashkar Gah, everybody we address acclaims further developed security, yet there's another fight in Afghan urban communities, against hunger.
Unfamiliar financing which used to set up the past government has been sliced and Afghanistan's bank saves have been frozen since the Taliban took power a year ago. Presently neediness and kid unhealthiness are on the ascent.
"I go down to the traffic circle at sunrise to attempt to look for employment as a worker," one old man tells us, "however on the off chance that even one individual shows up extending to an employment opportunity, 50 others swarm around him first."
A group assembles around us right now, all whining of sharp ascents to food costs and an absence of chances.
"In any event, while I'm saying my requests, I continue to consider my obligations and how I'll take care of them," says Haji Baridad, a structure worker for hire. In any case, he adds, he's cheerful the conflict has finished. "I live right external the city and couldn't go around evening time, presently I can… Yet I'm procuring nothing."
The Taliban truly do have a level of certified grassroots help in Afghanistan, especially in places like Helmand, in spite of the fact that as they obnoxiously go against vote based decisions, measuring it is unimaginable.
Helmand, nonetheless, is likewise perhaps of the most firmly controlled region in the country. We've been informed anybody openly condemning the Taliban faces capture or far more detestable.
In December 2021, Naveed Azimi, an English educator, was kept by the Taliban in Helmand for having composed a Facebook post censuring the absence of pay rates for government workers. Not long later, his dead body was unloaded by the waterway.
Talking on state of namelessness, one more neighborhood pundit of the Taliban educated the BBC that concerning 20 individuals altogether had been captured for their virtual entertainment movement.
"You can't express anything by any means," he said, depicting how some were basically undermined while others were kept in prison. "The Taliban have various kinds of torment for them, hitting them with links and lines, holding their heads submerged."
From Helmand, we set out for Kandahar. The drive is just shy of three hours, yet would have been unbelievable as far as we're concerned during the conflict. In the fields by the side of the road, ranchers are picking grapes, yet it's one more yield that this piece of the nation is most popular for.
Opium filled in Afghanistan delivers by far most of the world's heroin, and before, it's been a significant type of revenue for both unfortunate ranchers and the Taliban.
Presently the Taliban have restricted its development. A couple of fields of evaporated poppies are that survive from the latest harvest. Shaista Gul, an old rancher with a badly creased face, is concerned. "Nothing else we plant can bring in us enough cash," he says.
Given the boycott, in any case, he has no designs to attempt to establish opium once more. The Taliban could be going to accomplish what the US never could, significantly destroying poppy creation. Opium that has previously been handled, however, is as yet being straightforwardly exchanged markets.
"Some say rich individuals have stockpiled a great deal of opium," Shaista Gul tells us, "trusting that the costs will rise considerably further. So they're blissful."
We show up in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-biggest city and profound home of the Taliban. It was at a sanctuary here that the organizer behind the Taliban, Mullah Omar, was pronounced "Head of the Unwavering" in 1996, as he remained before a group, holding out a shroud said to have had a place with the Prophet Muhammad.
"The Taliban were a lot stricter in those days," one old observer to the occasion tells us. "Presently they're not constraining individuals to develop their facial hair, for instance."
Kandahar, notwithstanding, is where the new preeminent head of the Taliban, the withdrawn Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, actually lives. He stays out of open sight, however he is accepted to be behind the continuously solidifying position of the Taliban throughout the span of the year. The Taliban's administration is situated in Kabul, however it's Kandahar where a definitive choices are made.
The most recent illustration of the Taliban's decisiveness is whipping. Up to this point, it hasn't been broadly executed, yet last month, Taliban authorities in Kandahar declared three individuals had been whipped for sex outside marriage and burglary.
"It's our country, our religion," the region's representative lead representative, Maulvi Hayatullah Mubarak, answers rebelliously when I question him about the episode, demanding a legitimate strategy would have been followed.
Afghan ladies have been impacted most by the Taliban's new regulations. In Kandahar and southern Afghanistan, virtually totally wore the burqa or canvassed their appearances in open as of now. Female instructors and medical care laborers are among the individuals who have been permitted to work. In any case, others have been told to remain at home.
Negina Naseri was a radio moderator in Kandahar, yet halted work while battling escalated. Presently she might want to return, yet while female columnists in Kabul are as yet communicating, outlets in Kandahar have been informed they can never again utilize them.
"Kandahar is a territory where individuals don't frequently allow ladies to work," Negina tells me. "At the point when I was out on the road I was hit, my scarf was pulled, individuals tossed containers or cigarette parcels at me - even their telephone numbers… regardless of this I figured out how to accomplish an expert position."
Presently, stuck at home, she says she in some cases wishes she had never at any point tried chasing after a training.
Kandahar may be where the Taliban initially arose, but on the other hand it's where they have confronted probably the fiercest obstruction. Right across the street from the hallowed place visited by Taliban organizer Mullah Omar is an intricate domed catacomb recognizing one of the Taliban's most famous rivals.
General Raziq was seen as a legend by quite a few people in Afghanistan for assisting keep down the Taliban with progressing, until he was killed in 2018. He was firmly connected to the unfamiliar military presence, yet additionally blamed for boundless denials of basic freedoms.
In the town of Twist Boldak, south of Kandahar, lining Pakistan, his men supposedly ran a mysterious jail. Faizullah Shakir, an imam at a close by mosque, who says he has no connections with the Taliban, was held there for almost three years and provides us with a visit through his previous cell.
"They balanced me from the roof and folded my arms over a line, while beating my legs with pikes," he says. He depicts being suspended like that for three days prior to being chopped down, having his jaw broken and afterward being taken to a little, dull underground chamber where he resided with a gathering of different detainees.
There wasn't even sufficient room for them each to rests, he says.
The Taliban have carried out endless abominations over the Afghan struggle and have been answerable for most of non military personnel passings, however they, or those blamed for connections to them, have additionally been the survivors of monstrosities. The occurrences were in many cases essentially never featured similarly.
It makes sense of why some in the nation see little contrast between the "strongmen" of the past government and the Taliban's powers now.
Driving along the wall isolating Afghanistan from Pakistan, we arrive at an altogether deserted town called Sharo Oba. Leader Haji Sailab, a veteran Taliban part, says he and other nearby individuals from his Noorzai clan who lived there were constrained out all at once by Broad Raziq, who had a place with an opponent clan.
"At the point when I returned here interestingly last year with my family, they cried with bliss," Haji Sailab says.
Others recommend the occupants had to leave, not due to ancestral contention, but since they were holding onto Taliban components who had sent off rehashed assaults on government powers. Be that as it may, Haji Sailab says the occurrence assisted the development with developing from a little to significant presence nearby, gaining by neighborhood outrage.
After Twist Boldak tumbled to the Taliban, there were trustworthy reports of vengeance killings by individuals from the Noorzai clan. Haji Sailab, in any case, rejects that. He demands a pardon declared by the Taliban authority forestalled brutality.
"There would've been waterways of blood streaming," he says. "We know precisely who was liable for the assaults on us."