America's Afghanistan adventure ends, worry over jihadi terror begins

Taliban’s message to their constituency is clear: ‘their victory over superpowers shows faith is the bigger power and righteous’. This gives Taliban legitimacy in the eyes of people of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region to impose its version of sharia, the legal system of Islam.

Mujahideen defeated two superpowers in about 30 years — Russia in 1989 and the US now. This is the message that the Taliban propaganda machine is delivering to their people. The Taliban had announced their victory over the US as early as May 2019 and reiterated their claim in April 2021 much before the actual fall of Kabul. “This territory belongs to the mujahideen,” a Talib had told the BBC in April this year as the Taliban set eyes on Mazar-e-Sharif.