Walking on the streets of Kabul, before the Taliban took over Afghanistan

The legend of Kabul begins with a bridge, a road appearing on the water. In the story of the city as an island on a magical lake, a king builds a bridge leading to it from the shore. The same bridge is the path to departing from the island. Returning to Kabul and leaving it are not endings but states of movement, of travel.

On the flight I took from Delhi to Kabul in 2013, my fellow passengers were mostly Afghans returning home, after medical treatment or a holiday. It seemed like a reversal of the journey I had made in 2006, when the flight was full of international workers and consultants. I was travelling at the end of the narrative arc that had started in 2001, with the US-led invasion.

Within a few months, by the end of 2014, ISAF would formally end combat operations in Afghanistan, after thirteen years of war. Foreign troops were pulling out, and the reduced number that would remain would focus on providing training and advice to the Afghan security forces, who were now responsible for keeping the peace. The international reconstruction effort was also scaling down, with a negative economic impact on the entire country.

The changes…

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