Taliban Celebrate Five Years Back in Power: Military Victory, Diplomatic Survival—and a Country Women Are Being Written Out Of
The Taliban marked five years since retaking Kabul with parades and ‘victory day’ celebrations. The movement has survived sanctions, isolation and internal strains while gaining limited diplomatic acceptance—but Afghanistan remains in a severe humanitarian and human-rights crisis.
The Taliban have marked the fifth anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan with military displays, ceremonies and speeches celebrating what they describe as victory over foreign occupation.
On August 15, 2021, Taliban forces entered Kabul as the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed and Western troops completed their withdrawal.
Five years later, the movement is still in power.
That fact alone is strategically important.
Many governments initially assumed the Taliban would struggle to govern, fracture internally or face enough economic pressure to make major concessions.
Instead, the regime has consolidated control over most of the country.
Taliban officials paraded armoured vehicles near the former U.S. embassy in Kabul and called the anniversary a victory over Western domination.
Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani praised the movement’s morale and courage while also acknowledging that problems remain.
The government’s core narrative is straightforward.
Afghanistan is no longer occupied.
Large-scale nationwide civil war has ended.
The Taliban control borders, ministries and security forces.
They have survived five years without the foreign military presence that sustained the previous republic.
That is the version celebrated in official ceremonies.
The competing version is much darker.
Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
Humanitarian organisations warn that drought, unemployment, deportations, natural disasters and declining aid have pushed millions into severe hardship.
Women and girls have suffered the most dramatic loss of rights.
Girls above primary-school age remain barred from formal secondary education.
Women are excluded from most university study and many professions.
Restrictions on movement and public life have increased.
The United Nations estimates millions of Afghan girls have lost access to education.
Taliban leaders say women’s rights are protected under their interpretation of Islamic law.
Human-rights organisations describe the system as institutionalised gender persecution.
That gap defines much of Afghanistan’s international position.
Most governments still refuse to recognise the Taliban formally.
Russia is the major exception, having extended formal recognition.
Other states—including China, Iran, Turkey, India and Gulf governments—maintain practical relations without necessarily granting full legal recognition.
That pragmatic engagement has increased.
Foreign governments need to discuss trade, border security, migration, counterterrorism and deportations with whoever controls Kabul.
That gives the Taliban diplomatic leverage without requiring major ideological compromise.
Five years after the takeover, the regime is therefore less isolated than it was in 2021.
Not accepted, but harder to ignore.
The Taliban’s security record is also mixed.
Large-scale insurgent warfare has decreased compared with the final years of the previous government.
Islamic State’s Afghan branch remains capable of lethal attacks.
Taliban officials and local leaders have been assassinated.
Recent instability in Badakhshan has also highlighted internal tensions among commanders.
Pakistan-Taliban relations have deteriorated sharply.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of tolerating Pakistani Taliban militants operating from Afghan territory.
The Taliban reject that accusation.
This is one of the biggest changes from 2021.
Pakistan once expected a friendly Taliban government to increase its influence in Afghanistan.
Instead, relations have become increasingly confrontational.
Economically, Taliban authorities point to improved customs collection, reduced corruption in some sectors and new mining and infrastructure deals.
Critics say those gains are insufficient to replace lost foreign aid and access to global finance.
Resource extraction, particularly mining, has become politically important.
It can provide revenue.
It also creates local power struggles and corruption risks.
The anniversary therefore presents two realities at once.
The Taliban achieved something few insurgencies ever do: they outlasted a superpower-backed government, returned to the capital and remained in control for five years.
That is a remarkable military and political survival story.
It is also a story of promises abandoned.
Before taking Kabul, Taliban representatives repeatedly suggested the new government would be more moderate than the regime that ruled in the 1990s.
The restrictions on women have made those assurances difficult to defend.
International engagement is now creating another moral dilemma.
Governments may conclude that isolating Kabul changes nothing.
Human-rights campaigners fear normalisation rewards the Taliban precisely when repression has become entrenched.
Afghans themselves live between those geopolitical arguments.
Some value the reduction in nationwide warfare.
Others have lost careers, education, political freedom or the possibility of leaving.
The open question after five years is no longer whether the Taliban can survive.
They already have.
It is whether a regime increasingly confident in its permanence has any incentive to become more inclusive—or whether the world gradually adapts to Taliban rule while the restrictions imposed since 2021 become the permanent structure of Afghan society.