Divorce, smartphones and control - BBC sees how Taliban run Afghanistan

What the report says

Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the BBC reports that the group has preserved many of its hard-line social controls while putting former insurgents into senior government roles. In reporting from Sheberghan, Kabul and Kandahar, the BBC says it was given unusual access to Taliban figures and witnessed both the movement’s public image efforts and its continued restrictions on daily life.

One central scene involves Abdullah Sarhadi, the governor of Jawzjan province and a former Taliban commander who was once detained at Guantanamo Bay. In his office, a young woman seeks a divorce from a husband she accuses of abuse, offering a glimpse of how women’s rights and family disputes are handled under Taliban rule. The BBC also describes Sarhadi defending the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in the 1990s and expressing views that suggest continuity with the movement’s earlier ideology.

The report also follows Habibullah Badr, another senior figure who says he once oversaw suicide operations in Kabul and later worked in the prison system. At a public gathering, a local official’s brief call for girls’ education highlights the limits on public dissent. The BBC says women remain barred from most workplaces and higher education, and that journalists face scrutiny from Taliban intelligence.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking at a press centre in Kabul, is presented as the movement’s public voice on policy, including claims made in 2021 that women would be allowed to study and work within Taliban rules. The report uses these encounters to show how the Taliban govern, how they present themselves, and how far their rule diverges from hopes for broader freedoms.