Commentary on the Anniversary of the Fall of Kabul
Date of publication: August 17, 2026
On 15 August 2026, Filip Sommer, Director of the Prague Center for Middle East Relations (PCMR) at CEVRO University, commented on the current situation in Afghanistan on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s return to power on 15 August 2021. His comments, which were published by several media outlets, are available here, here, and here.
Context
The Taliban has largely succeeded in consolidating its rule and now governs the country under the name of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It controls almost the entire country, while the intensity of armed conflict remains considerably lower than before 2021. Armed resistance nevertheless persists, particularly in the predominantly Tajik-populated Panjshir Valley and other northeastern provinces.
In July 2026, for example, the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF), an Afghan military organization composed primarily of former members of the Afghan National Security Forces, attacked Taliban positions in Badakhshan Province. According to its own claims, it temporarily captured several outposts in Zebak District. However, the opposition does not control any contiguous territory, and its operations remain predominantly localized. Without sustained foreign financial and military support, it does not currently pose an immediate threat to Taliban rule.
At the same time, Afghanistan has become a closed authoritarian regime that has systematically excluded women from public life, the labour market, and secondary and higher education.
The regime remains vulnerable primarily in economic terms. Afghanistan is impoverished, dependent on foreign assistance, and unable to generate sufficient employment opportunities. More than 3.7 million children face acute malnutrition, while the country’s healthcare system has also been severely weakened. The humanitarian crisis has been further exacerbated by the mass return of Afghans forced to leave Pakistan and Iran, many of whom lack housing and any reliable source of income or livelihood. The Islamic State Khorasan Province, commonly known as ISIS-K, remains a significant security threat, while internal divisions within the Taliban may also become a source of instability. Nevertheless, in my view, the regime is currently unlikely to collapse.
Judged against its principal political objective, building a stable state capable of defending itself against the Taliban without foreign military support, the Western mission ended in failure. The speed with which Afghan institutions collapsed demonstrated their excessive dependence on foreign assistance, as well as the extent to which they were weakened by corruption and a lack of domestic legitimacy.
The fall of Kabul also carries broader implications for current US policy in the Middle East. It demonstrated the risks associated with ending long-term military missions and transferring responsibility to local partners whose survival depends on American support. This experience is also relevant in the context of the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in the first half of 2026 and the planned conclusion of their mission in Iraq by the end of September 2026. In this respect, Afghanistan serves as a warning that withdrawal alone does not necessarily produce stability and may instead create a security vacuum if local institutions are unable to assume effective control.
This does not mean, however, that the twenty-year Western presence produced no lasting results. Access to education and healthcare expanded considerably, infrastructure improved, and freer media and a better-educated urban generation emerged. Some of these changes continue to shape Afghan society, even though the Taliban is systematically dismantling many of them, most notably women’s rights and their access to secondary and higher education. The Western intervention therefore ended in political and military failure, but it was not a period entirely devoid of lasting social achievements.
The Taliban has not overcome its international isolation in legal or political terms, but it has succeeded in significantly reducing it in practice. Russia became the first country to formally recognize its government in July 2025, while China, Iran, India, the Central Asian states, and several Arab countries maintain pragmatic relations with Kabul. These relations primarily concern trade, mineral resources, transport, migration, and counterterrorism. Regional states increasingly operate on the assumption that the Taliban is unlikely to be replaced in the foreseeable future.
Russia has gone furthest in normalizing relations with the Taliban. Moscow designated the movement as a terrorist organization in 2003 but lifted the ban in April 2025 and subsequently recognized its government. Vladimir Putin had already described the Taliban as an ally in the fight against terrorism in 2024. Since 2022, Afghanistan has also imported gas, oil, and wheat from Russia. Moscow’s pragmatic engagement is driven primarily by concerns about Islamist organizations operating across the wider region stretching from Afghanistan to the Middle East. The scale of this threat was demonstrated by the March 2024 attack on a concert hall near Moscow, which killed 149 people and was claimed by the Islamic State. According to some reports, ISIS-K was responsible for the attack.
This engagement does not, however, indicate trust in the Taliban or approval of its policies. This is most clearly illustrated by the sharp deterioration in relations with Pakistan over the activities of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the associated cross-border violence. The regime has therefore achieved a degree of pragmatic normalization, but not broader international legitimacy.