The lightning advance of the Taliban in retaking the country has led Afghan Americans, former generals and leading statesmen to blame President Joe Biden for a hasty US withdrawal. But he appears to have the public on his side – for now.
Hadia Essazada wept as she recounted the horror the Taliban visited on her household, first beating her father, and then killing her brother.
The first time “they were beating my father with an iron rod because they were looking for my elder brother”, who had fought to resist their rule in the 1990s, she told BBC Persian.
They fled their house in the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif, but “after six months when we returned to our home, Taliban again came to visit us. And they took my younger brother”.
“I don’t know how many days had passed when a shopkeeper in our neighbourhood came to my father to tell him his son was killed,” she said.
The Taliban had executed him and dragged his body through the streets. Relatives were not allowed to collect his body for burial for weeks, and by then, dogs had been allowed to desecrate the remains
