The Taliban celebrate the first anniversary of their seizure of power in front of the US Embassy in Kabul

The Taliban Emirate decreed late on Sunday that this Monday is a holiday throughout Afghanistan.

They celebrate the taking of the country just a year ago, when their troops stormed the presidential palace in Kabul without resistance.

Shortly before, the president, Ashraf Ghani, fled from that compound flying in a helicopter.

He thus staged the delivery of the country on a silver platter to the rebels.

But this Monday, the aspect of the Afghan capital, of four million inhabitants, is practically that of a normal working day, if it were not for the constant parades of caravans with Taliban celebrating the first day of the victory of their second arrival in power .

The previous one covered from 1996 to 2001.

As if it were a pilgrimage, several hundred people shouted to Allah on Monday and congratulated each other as police cars, motorcycles, bicycles and even armored vehicles inherited from the US Army passed through different avenues and neighborhoods in the capital.

The Taliban, in accordance with the date indicated, wear their best clothes.

This is what those who wear civilians do, because the military march with all their paraphernalia.

Among the traffic chaos, children and adults wave black and white flags of the Emirate that are given to them from the corners.

Miraculously, no one gets run over.

A Taliban takes his son, also dressed as a soldier, to the celebrations in Kabul.

Louis Vega

The security obsession

The mantra that obsesses the Taliban is that of security.

They repeat it relentlessly in every statement, every statement, every interview, every tweet... "Afghanistan has been a country at peace for a year."

The reality is not like that at all: the violence continues on the street.

At the same time, the country remains immersed in a very serious humanitarian and economic crisis, which is aggravated by the crushing of human rights, especially of women, exercised by the authorities of the Islamic Emirate.

With the fundamentalists in power, an important part of the attacks and bombings that marked the daily course of the country until a year ago no longer take place.

The Taliban were the main instigators and protagonists of that violence, while now they are the ones who hold the reins of power.

That is why there are people, inside and outside Kabul, who say that they feel safer and that travel is more peaceful.

But the Taliban are now trying their own medicine from the government: attacks and attacks by those who do not want them at the forefront, such as the terrorists of the Islamic State group (ISIS, according to its acronym in English).

A man in the middle of the Taliban celebration for the seizure of power.

Louis Vega

The headquarters of the American Embassy is the symbol of the defeat inflicted by the jihadist guerrillas on the foreign troops that, for 20 years, sheltered different local governments.

At mid-morning, when the Taliban consider the crowding excessive, they begin to clear the roundabout.

Both guerrilla and neighbor together, distracted in the celebrations, are a tasty candy for the ISIS cells.

These enemies of the Emirate have repeatedly attacked the city in recent weeks, causing more than a hundred deaths, according to the UN.

Last Friday they dealt a major blow to the Taliban, assassinating the prominent religious Rahimullah Haqqani in an attack carried out by a suicide bomber.

Taliban supporters with the flag representing the Islamic Emirate.

Louis Vega

Women are hardly seen participating in the celebration.

Leaving only her eyes peeking out of the black clothing that covers her entire body, the young Kali is photographed with her partner Salman, holding two Taliban flags.

A bearded man, part of one of the security checkpoints, takes a photo of them.

The couple is Pakistani: they both study medicine in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, but on August 15 they were caught in the capital.

Pakistan, the eastern neighbor, has always been a firm pillar on which the Afghan Taliban rest.

Very close to the couple, about 200 meters away, is the epicenter of the Islamist cavalcade: the main access to the diplomatic mission that Washington occupied in Kabul.

The revelry, with insults to "America", stays outside the huge walls that protect empty facilities since August of last year.

The Taliban shout non-stop as they raise their weapons to the sky, without firing any shots into the air at this time.

In any case, the conference had a rather low institutional profile.

"Today is the day of the victory of truth over falsehood and the day of salvation and freedom for the Afghan nation," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

In an appearance organized in the early afternoon, the Foreign Minister, Amir Jan Muttaqi, assured that the Emirate has achieved the security that was never achieved under the command of the United States.

"We want to have a good relationship with all countries, we are not going to let the territory of Afghanistan be used against anyone," he said, according to the Reuters agency.

Washington ordered to invade the country in 2001 due to the collusion of the Taliban with Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Extending its tentacles through rural Afghanistan, and committing attacks and attacks by the whole country;

Last year the Taliban managed to gain total control of the country, taking advantage of the international disarray and the surrender of the local Army.

The vast majority of Afghans — immersed in such mundane concerns as looking for food or work — feel alienated from parades like the one on Monday.

At 19 years old, Omar, a Taliban with a beard that is still not very bushy for local tastes, nevertheless feels proud: “Each country has a special day and this day is Afghanistan;

the day we defeated the first power in the world”.

Around him, a train of filthy boys carry raffia sacks on their backs where they put all the plastic they see on the street, while they extend their hands in search of a handout:

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