Ismail Khan, an Afghan leader, has said in a message marking the fourth anniversary of the fall of Herat to the Taliban that the group’s actions over the past four years demonstrate the “legitimacy of the resistance” by its opponents.
Ismail Khan described the fall of Herat as the result of “complex conspiracies and political deal-making,” after which Afghanistan’s major provinces fell one after another.
Herat was captured by the Taliban on 12 August, four years ago today. In his message, Ismail Khan wrote that before the city’s fall, the “Southwest People’s Resistance Movement” had been formed, and its forces had taken part in the defence of the city. However, he said, the course of events led to a “dangerous regression.”
He also described the fall of Kabul as “the end of a multi-layered intelligence project,” paid tribute to those killed during that period, and called for efforts “by every possible means” to establish a “justice-based” order.
Four years after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, families of those who plunged to their deaths while clinging to a departing US military aircraft say the trauma of that day will never fade.
In interviews with Agence France-Presse, relatives of the victims recalled the chaos of 16 August 2021, when thousands of Afghans swarmed Kabul airport after the city fell. Some, desperate to flee, clung to the fuselage of a US military plane as it took off.
Images and videos from that day showed several people falling from the aircraft mid-flight, footage that spread rapidly around the world.
Among the victims was 18-year-old Shafiullah Hotak, who had hoped to become a doctor but was working due to a lack of money for tuition. Influenced by rumours that Americans were evacuating Afghans, he told his parents that morning that he was going to America, before leaving for the airport with 50 Afghanis in his pocket.
The airport was full of families holding any scrap of paper they thought might help them leave. "Shafiullah had hope. He said that if he made it to the United States, I could stop working, that he would repay us for everything we had done for him," recalled his mother, Zar Bibi Hotak.
"I gave him his ID card and he left. Then we heard he was dead."
Relatives recognised his photo on Facebook, posted by witnesses at the airport. His body was later found on the roof of a house several kilometres from the airport.
The body of 24-year-old Fida Mohammad Amir was found in similar circumstances. His father, Payenda Mohammad Ebrahimi, said Fida despised the Taliban and left home that day pretending he had a dental appointment. Hours later, a stranger at the airport answered his phone to say Fida had fallen from the aircraft.
Zakir Anwari, whose brother Zaki was crushed under the wheels of a plane at the airport, blamed the crew for not stopping. "The planes have cameras... the pilot knew what he was doing, that it was dangerous, he could have stopped," he said.
A US military spokesperson has said the crew decided to depart as quickly as possible because the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians.
Residents of eastern Nangarhar province who were displaced by Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) fighting under the former Afghan republic say the Taliban have failed to deliver on promises to rebuild their destroyed homes, and infrastructure.
Civilians from Haska Mina, Achin, Spin Ghar, Kot, Naziyan and Dur Baba districts told Afghanistan International that clashes during the previous government left their homes, roads, farmland, mosques and health centres in ruins. Many remain without shelter nearly four years later.
The residents say both the former administration and the Taliban pledged reconstruction but no action has been taken. They also report that past fighting destroyed markets, halted economic activity and caused major financial losses.
Displaced families from Haska Mina said Taliban migration officials told them last year that foreign aid agencies would rebuild their areas, but they have seen no follow-up.
Some now live in camps in Kabul or in Jalalabad city, while others have returned to their devastated home areas, struggling to survive among the ruins.
Local estimates put the number of families displaced by the conflict at around 23,000. Many had fled to Pakistan but returned after Islamabad intensified deportations of Afghan migrants.
More than 6 million Afghan migrants live in Iran, including over 3 million without valid residency documents, according to figures cited by the state-run Fars News Agency.
The outlet, citing official statistics, said more than 1.14 million Afghan migrants have been deported to date. It described the presence of around 3 million undocumented Afghans as “a complex challenge with security, economic and social dimensions.”
Nader Yarahmadi, head of the Interior Ministry’s Office for Foreign Nationals and Migrants, said that by March 2024 Iran had about 2 million undocumented migrants, with a further 2.034 million added by March 2025.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said the country can no longer accommodate more migrants without legal status. He claimed that over 1.1 million Afghans have left Iran during the period, more than 70 per cent of them voluntarily.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Law Enforcement Command said the policy on undocumented migrants has not changed and enforcement operations are ongoing. “Identifying undocumented migrants, arresting individuals suspected of cooperating with hostile groups, and preventing the entry of people using false identities remain priorities,” the spokesperson said.
Iranian analysts predict the deportations will continue due to economic and security pressures but say their success will depend on cooperation from the Taliban and international organisations.
Separately, Iran’s Minister of Health said Afghan patients without valid residency documents are not eligible for health insurance coverage.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Finance says it returned 166 tankers of low-quality fuel from Afghanistan’s customs points between 22 June and 22 July.
According to ministry figures, the shipments included 161 tankers of diesel and two of petrol from the Nimruz port, as well as three tankers of petrol from the Sher Khan Bandar crossing.
The Taliban did not disclose the countries of origin for the shipments. Sher Khan Bandar is located near the border with Tajikistan, while Nimruz port lies close to Iran.
Over the past four years, the Taliban have repeatedly described some imported fuel tankers from Iran as “low-quality” and sent them back.
The Taliban’s standards authority says that once fuel enters Afghanistan, samples are taken at the border for quality testing before it is approved for sale.
Senior Taliban figure Anas Haqqani says the group originally intended to enter Kabul in 2021 through a negotiated arrangement with the then-government to preserve international legitimacy.
However, he said, the Taliban was forced to take the city after former president Ashraf Ghani abruptly left the country.
In an interview with a Taliban-run radio station in Kabul, Haqqani said the group had long known the United States would withdraw from Afghanistan. He claimed the plan was to enter the capital “through mutual understanding” so that relations with the world would remain normal, but that strategy failed when news arrived that Ghani had departed Kabul.
Haqqani said that during the Doha talks between the Taliban and the US, the group realised Washington was determined to leave but would not say so publicly. The Ghani government, meanwhile, insisted it was being sidelined in the negotiations and believed US forces would remain.
According to Haqqani, Taliban leaders had expected a transfer of power and sought to keep government institutions functioning, maintain order, and prevent looting by agreeing an orderly entry into Kabul. “We knew the Americans would definitely leave… We understood the situation and recognised the necessity,” he said.
He noted that he refers to Ghani’s departure as “left” rather than “fled” and still calls him “Dr. Ghani” an unusually respectful tone among Taliban leaders.
Speaking about the Doha process, Haqqani said the Taliban negotiating team’s priority was to sign an agreement with the US “in front of the world”, which he described as “the signing of America’s defeat,” though Western governments referred to it as a peace deal.
Once intra-Afghan talks began, he said, Taliban negotiators lost hope of progress. He claimed the Kabul delegation aimed to delay talks until Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump, at which point they would cancel the agreement. “Talks with the Afghan team were pointless, so we decided to hold only symbolic meetings,” he said.
Haqqani’s comments come ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power. Many Afghan politicians argue that the key to peace was an intra-Afghan agreement, but in Doha the US signed a deal directly with the Taliban without securing consensus among Afghan factions, paving the way for the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Anas Haqqani, the half-brother of Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, was arrested by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security in 2014 and freed in 2019 in exchange for two American professors. He joined the Taliban’s Doha negotiating team soon after. Although he has never held a senior official post in the Taliban administration, he remains influential in decision-making circles.
Following the Doha deal, the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and imposed sweeping restrictions: banning political activities and parties, censoring media, closing schools and universities to girls and women, barring women from political participation, and even prohibiting them from visiting amusement parks and public spaces.
The group has staffed top government posts exclusively with clerics, prompting many skilled professionals to flee. Due to these policies, and no country except Russia has formally recognised the Taliban government.