Taliban encounter Afghan cities remade in their absence

The Taliban fighters who rolled into Afghanistan's capital and other cities in recent days appear awestruck by the towering apartment blocks, modern office buildings and shopping malls

Ezanullah, one of thousands of young Taliban fighters from the countryside who rode into Afghanistan's capital over the weekend, had never seen anything like it. The paved streets of Kabul were lined with towering apartment blocks, glass office buildings and shopping malls. The plush furniture inside the Interior Ministry was like “something I thought of in a dream,” said the 22-year-old fighter from the country's mountainous east. He said he plans to ask his commander if he can stay. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. The encounter highlights how much Kabul and other Afghan cities have changed in the 20 years since the Taliban, who mainly hail from rugged rural areas, last ruled the country. An entire generation of Afghans has come of age under a modernizing, Western-backed government flush with development aid.