Afghans struggle to survive as Taliban face challenges

Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers face tough economic and security challenges as they step back into power in a country that is vastly different from the one they left 20 years ago.

When they last ruled in the late 1990s, Afghanistan was a poor agricultural nation, and the Taliban were preoccupied with imposing their harsh brand of Islam on an already deeply traditional and largely compliant population.

This time, they're inheriting a more developed society with a small, educated middle class, but also an economy that has been devastated by war and corruption.

Even before the Taliban overran Kabul on August 15, the jobless rate was more than 30% and more than half of Afghans lived in poverty, despite two decades of US involvement and billions of dollars in aid.

Many displaced Afghans are still living in IDP camps in different parts of Kabul.

50-year old Juma Khan, from Kunduz province, is living in one such camp with his wife and six children.

He brought his family to Kabul during heavy fighting between the Taliban and government forces in early August.

He said his home was destroyed and he can barely feed his family.

Hundreds of IDP families are living in the same camp, and donations provided by charity groups are stretched thin.

Outside the camps, there is a sense of a return to business as usual across much of the Afghan capital of more than five million people - in sharp contrast to the harrowing scenes at the Kabul airport where thousands surged toward the gates for days, hoping for an opportunity to leave.

But the Taliban government faces enormous economic challenges with near daily warnings of an impending economic meltdown and a humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations warns it could drive 97% of Afghans below the poverty level by the end of the year.

Thousands of desperate Afghans wait daily outside Afghanistan's banks for hours to withdraw the 200 US dollar weekly allotment.

In recent days, the Taliban appear to have been trying to establish a system for allowing customers to withdraw funds but it rapidly deteriorates into stick-waving as crowds surge toward the bank gates.

Outside the New Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's first private bank established in 2004, nearly 2-thousand people demanded their money on Sunday.

For Zahidullah Mashwani, Sunday was the third day he had come to the bank hoping to get his 200 US dollars.

Each night the Taliban make a list of eligible customers for the following day and by morning Mashwani said a whole new list is presented.

A new government must deliver quickly and ease the economic crisis, said Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Wilson Centre, a US-based think tank.

But how far the Taliban are willing to bend to ease international concerns, while staying true to their own set of beliefs, could further widen divisions among the leadership, particularly those with a more rigid ideology.

IMAGE: AP