Numerous reports of open resistance to Taliban rule by the Afghan people indicates that the militia is losing its grip over the population, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Anti-Taliban activities, such as bombings, riots, and demonstrations have been sprouting in the very regions where the Taliban have boasted popular support. Women, who have felt the harshest consequences of the Taliban’s draconian policies, are risking their lives in defiance by sending their daughters to clandestine schools and challenging Taliban edicts forbidding them to leaves their homes without a close male relative. “Today, so many women flout the rules that Taliban leaders insist that they never spoke such things,” reports the LA Times. However, women are very aware of the beatings and other consequences that come with violating the Taliban decrees.
Another indication of the lack of popularity of the militia is that many Afghans are rejecting the Taliban’s call to join their ranks and families are fleeing or paying bribe money to the Taliban in order to avoid the militia’s draft. Behind their discontent, Afghans have sited that the Taliban have not brought the peace and security they promised, nor have they worked to rebuild the country, and that the corruption and hypocrisy behind their iron-fisted rule is increasingly apparent. The Times reporter covering this story was detained and later expelled from Afghanistan by the Taliban and his translator, an Afghan national, was beaten, arrested and jailed.
