All language subtitles for Ghosts.Of.Afghanistan

(sombre music)

- I'm heartbroken
about the way things went

in Afghanistan.

Powerful armies
invaded this country

with slogans about peace,
democracy, women's rights.

(infant crying)

It was a disaster.

Now the foreign troops
are withdrawing.

Whatever they leave behind,
so far, it's nothing like
what we promised.

My name is Graeme Smith.

Canadian war correspondent

more than 15 years ago.

(gunshots)

I followed troops into battle.

Spent years smelling the death.

The charred flesh
of suicide bombers

got stuck in the treads
of my shoes.

I returned one more time

before the Taliban
swept back into power.

I needed to find out how
it all went wrong.

I was also looking for a way
to reconcile myself

with the terrible things that
we, the foreigners,

inflicted on
this beautiful country.

(escalating oriental music)

I've just come back to Kabul

and one of my first
evenings out,

I looked at my phone
and I heard that

an analyst
that I knew a little bit,

he'd been gunned down
in the streets.

Probably because of the things
he was saying on television.

That was a good reminder
about the dangers these days

that, I guess, face everyone
who dips their toe

into politics in Afghanistan.

(faint honking)

(casual string music)

I first came to Afghanistan
in 2005

as a reporter
for The Globe and Mail.

And I stayed
for many years after that

as an analyst for NGOs
and the United Nations.

(indistinct chatter)

It was exciting
for a kid in his twenties

What felt like
the edges of civilization.

I had no idea

what I was getting myself into.

When I first arrived,

it felt like
a cowboy frontier town.

It wasn't unusual
to hear people saying,

"Oh, this is like
the opening scene in Star Wars.

You know? With all of the crazy
characters walking around."

everyone you can possibly

imagine was crowding into Kabul

in the early years of the war.

(distant sirens)

Today, so much has changed.

I've never seen the city
so on edge.

The Taliban, once defeated, can
now strike at any time.

(sirens wailing)

(crying)

People try to go about
their daily lives

but there's always the danger

of a truck bomb
or a suicide attack.

(repeated honking)

And when we venture outside

to talk to local people
and do some filming,

we time ourselves to make sure
that we don't linger.

There's a lot of kidnappings

by criminals, the Taliban,
and other armed groups.

(eerie music)

Kabul used to be crowded
with foreigners.

Now the diplomats
and aid workers

mostly stay behind
the blast walls

and the barbed wire
that you see everywhere.

In the sky, surveillance blimps

float powerful cameras

to watch for trouble.

In the streets,
posters urge citizens

to dial a hotline
to stop terror attacks.

You know, it's the first time
coming to Kabul

that I've hired
a B6 armoured vehicle.

We've got the bulletproof glass,

the armour-plated doors,

We've got the bulletproof glass,

the armour-plated doors,

you can spray the tires
with bullets

and it'll keep driving.

In some ways
it feels like overkill

but that's the reality now.

I happen to know the man

in charge of all this security.

I met Hamdullah Mohib years ago

when he was an aid
to a presidential candidate.

Now only 37 years old,

he is the National Security
Advisor to the President.

(Hamdullah Mohib): Attacks here
have caused massive casualties,

people feel fearful.

It has a psychological impact
when you live like this.

Every day, my heart is pumping

worried about my children

until they come back
from school.

(Graeme): Like many
young Afghans

in positions of power today,

Mohib fled his homeland
as a child.

He lived in a refugee camp
in Pakistan

but was one of the lucky ones
who got an education

in the west.

Then he returned home
to try to rebuild his country.

(Hamdullah Mohib):
The Afghan people have been

desiring stability
ever since I was born.

My generation
grew up in this war

and all we want to see

is to be able to do
the normal things

that everyone else
takes for granted.

(indistinct chatter)

(Graeme): Mohib gets daily
briefings from his generals

who tell him
that they are winning the war.

(Hamdullah Mohib): This is
a different kind of warfare.

We have the conventional warfare

that most militaries
are prepared to fight.

- Yeah.

- And they're trying to do that.

And then there's
this gorilla type of warfare

mixed with terrorism

and tactics used by the Taliban.

(Graeme): These tactics
are bringing the war

right into Mohib's backyard.

20 years of fighting
has settled nothing.

When I first started
coming to Afghanistan

the Taliban were just ghosts.

You would never see them.

I mean, even on the battlefield

just the occasional muzzle flash

or a bit of movement
in the foliage.

They were very good
at removing their dead

from the battlefield

so you didn't see the corpses.

They were a myth
more than anything else.

(dark chiming music)

The Taliban started as

conservative religious students

based in the southern province
of Kandahar.

Many had taken up arms
against the Soviet troops

that occupied Afghanistan
in the 1980s.

(violent whooshing)

But once the Soviets
were driven out,

a vicious civil war erupted
among rival political factions

in the 1990s.

The Taliban emerged
as the dominant force

in this chaos.

Sweeping the country
and capturing Kabul in 1996.

Once in power,
they closed girls' schools,

banned music and television.

They forced women
to wear the burqa

and executed people
for minor transgressions.

But they offered an alternative

to the rampant unrest
of earlier years.

That made the Taliban popular
in some places

especially
in the southern villages.

But a lot of educated people
fled the country.

(eerie flute music)

(rapid whirring)

(rumbling)

Then, in October 2001,
the Americans invaded.

The Taliban had been harbouring

Al-Qaeda leaders

who plotted the 9/11 attacks
in New York City.

- On my orders,

the United States military
has begun strikes

against the Al-Qaeda
terrorist training camps

and military installations
of the Taliban regime

in Afghanistan.

The name of today's
military operation

is Enduring Freedom.

(oriental music)

(Graeme): I don't know now
if there is such a thing

as a good war.

But definitely, at the time,

there was a feeling
that the war in Afghanistan

was noble somehow.

Not just the foreign troops

but everybody who came
with the foreign troops.

The aid workers,
the journalists.

Almost all of them felt

as though they were pushing back

the forces of darkness
in Afghanistan.

They were pushing back
the forces of evil

and barbarism.

(oriental music continues)

I was swept up in this fantasy

that gripped everyone
in Afghanistan.

All the foreigners,

and frankly
the entire western world

at that time.

It was a kind of
romantic notion,

a flawed romantic notion.

That belief inspired Canada
and dozens of countries

to more than
100,000 foreign troops.

One of the soldiers
I came to know

was Ayesha Wolasmal.

Born in Norway, she often
visited family in Afghanistan.

She joined the Norweigan Army
in 2006.

We arranged to meet one morning

in the garden of a heavily
protected compound in Kabul.

What was that like
putting on the uniform?

- Fantastic.
It was very emotional.

Even though I was very young,

I immediately had this feeling
that I can,

you know,
be a bridge maker somehow

because I grew up
in a very conservative

traditional Pashtun family.

And I picked up
on a lot of cultural nuances,

that whole kind of
tribal thinking.

I have to admit, I wasn't that
intellectually invested

in the whole peace and democracy

aspect of it.

It was more the immediate,
you know,

relief for the population,
as I saw it.

- You're sort of saving
the people from the Taliban.

- Yeah, exactly.

So that was a very strong
sentiment.

(shouting)

(Graeme): At first
it all seemed easy.

In a little more
than two months,

the western armies
drove the Taliban from power.

(indistinct chatter)

(Ayesha Wolasmal):
And I remember music playing,

Afghans love music.

As soon as the regime
was toppled, I felt that,

"Okay, now the world
has access to Afghanistan.

And Afghanistan
has access to the world,

to all the impulses
that help a country

move in the right direction."

Practically, that meant
development projects coming in.

Girls going to school,
something as basic as that.

(lively music)

(Graeme): Much has changed
especially for the lucky few

that live in cities.

Foreign troops and foreign aid

brought new freedoms
and new opportunities.

(sombre music)

But when you leave Kabul,
things get more complicated.

Especially here in the south
in Kandahar

where I spent most of my time
as a reporter.

(cars rumbling)

(indistinct chatter)

For me it was really important

to cover
all sides of the conflict.

So spending time
with Afghan Security Forces,

trying to hear
what the Taliban had to say.

They'd go... well they stayed
outside the wire

beyond the razor-wire fence

that surrounds
the military camps

and just listen
to ordinary people.

(car honking)

Kandahar is where
the Taliban first emerged

and it remains
very conservative.

Women in public

pretty much always wear
the traditional burqa.

And yet, here is where,
with Canadian Aid money,

a friend of mine
tried something bold.

In a quiet corner of the city,

these girls escape
behind the high walls

of this private school.

They take off their burqas

to attend classes in English
and learn computer skills.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Life is good.

Life is good
and we see you again.

You're welcome.
- It's so nice to see you.

Ehsanullah Ehsan for years.

Thank you so much. You look
even younger than before.

(laughing): Oh yeah!
- How is it possible?

We wanted to give you
a little surprise.

- So good, it's so good.
It is a surprise.

- But you're still here.

- I'm still here,
I'm still surviving.

It's definitely hard.

It's very risky here

to help all these women
get education

and especially modern education.

To go out and work,

to be self-sustained,
to be independent,

this is something unacceptable
for extremists.

For example, you are developing
a magazine, right?

Writing a magazine.

So in the magazine,
you need to put some photos

or you are doing a report.

(Graeme): But
foreign money has dried up

for his school as Canada
and other western donors

lost interest in Afghanistan.

His school has gone from

more than
2000 female students a year,

to 200.

And he struggles
to give the young girls hope.

- There is violence
against women in some countries

and Afghanistan is one of them.

(Graeme): These girls are here

to get a broad education.

(applause)

(Graeme): In today's
English class,

Soraya and her classmates

have an assignment
on violence against women,

a radical topic
here in the traditional south.

Now it's the turn
of 12-year-old Shabnam.

- Islam has given women
the right

to work, study,
and get education.

I request every family

to let women study, work,
and get education.

To shine one day
and achieve their dreams.

Let them fly like a bird
and be honoured one day.

Thanks a lot.

(applause)

(Graeme): It's not safe outside

for women or anyone else,
really.

Canadian troops fought and died

to protect this city

and yet now it's under siege
once again by the Taliban.

(vehicles bustling)

(melancholic music)

Police are constantly
on the lookout

for insurgents
and suicide bombers.

They guard the city

but they can barely
protect themselves.

Three police officers are
assassinated here in Kandahar

every week.

And across the country,
in some weeks,

hundreds of security personnel
are killed.

(tires screeching)

So just now, 20 minutes ago,
another target killing.

Yet again,
some gunmen on a motorcycle

shot and killed
an off-duty police officer.

It's amazing
the pace of these things.

(speaking in foreign language)

Even if the police are targets,

we have no choice.

We still need to rely on them
for our safety.

With two truckloads
of armed men,

we drive less than 30 minutes
to the frontlines

in the Panjwai Valley.

This is where
I first started to understand

that there would be no
military solution to this war.

Canada took command
of NATO operations

here in the south
back in 2006.

It was the country's biggest
deployment since World War II

and, eventually,
one of its bloodiest.

I think I slept in that shelter
over there.

This used to be a Canadian base.

It's called Masum Ghar.

And now,
there's hardly anything left.

It's like a ghost town.

This landscape haunts me.

I almost died in this valley.

I remember the bone-jarring
intensity of the explosions.

Just over there
in the hazy distance,

you can see Taliban territory.

The Canadians, the British,
the Germans, the Americans,

they all fought
to defeat the Taliban

and they failed, essentially.

(explosions blasting)

(men yelling, gunshots)

(man): Everybody okay?!

- I was just over there
listening on the radio

as Canadians on this hillside

were trying to move north
at Taliban positions.

(tense music)

(gunshots)

Year after year,
battle after battle,

I witnessed the same pattern.

Foreign troops hammering away
with modern fire power,

the Taliban coming back again,
and again, and again,

with nothing more sophisticated

than stubbornness.

(reporter 1):
NATO's top commander

had great words of praise today

for Canadian forces...

(reporter 2):
Canadian troops here

have been very successful.
The Taliban...

(reporter 3): ...defeating

a significant Taliban presence.

(reporter 1): ...declaring
the recent operation there

a clear military victory.

(Graeme): Canadian politicians
and generals

kept hailing the Afghan mission
as a spectacular success.

But looking back,

it was really
a string of failures.

They just retreated

and then launched
a renewed insurgency that grew

and engulfed the whole country.

(desolate music)

In my reports back then,

I tried to sound a note
of caution.

But I often
felt like a lonely voice

in a crowd
of media cheerleaders.

I really questioned
my own sanity sometimes

in Afghanistan.

I could see things
were happening in front of me

and I was trying
to write them down

and put them in the newspaper,

and then military officers
and government PR people

would sort of tell me,

"No, no that's not
what you saw."

It was a head-spinning
experience.

And I think
that's what happens in a war

where countries get swept up
in this fervour.

And they don't care what's true.

They want to know,
"How great are our boys?

How true is our cause?"

And I think
that's the madness of war.

(sombre music)

For Canada,
the madness would go on

for five more years.

We started to withdraw
from Afghanistan in 2011

with 158 soldiers dead
and at least 2000 injured.

I began to question

whether those sacrifices
were worth it.

I also began to realize

that while fighting
what we saw as evil

that we ourselves had sometimes
crossed the line into darkness.

I had to go back

to where I first saw
that darkness.

Maybe more
than any other single place,

where I really started
to lose faith

in the war in Afghanistan

was inside the crumbling
jail cells of Sarpoza prison

on the west side
of Kandahar City.

Some of the stories
I heard inside these walls...

I can't forget.
They're still with me.

The prison has always housed
common criminals

but also plenty of
political prisoners.

You can hear
the murmuring of men here

inside the political section
of the prison,

that's where
they keep the Taliban.

We're not allowed
to film inside there right now

but the last time I was here,

I spent a number of visits

inside the political
section here,

and they told me
terrible stories

about torture and abuse

at the hands
of the security forces.

And it really
started to change the way

that I thought about the war.

This was kind of
a turning point for me

in my whole thinking
about the conflict.

When I first came here in 2007,
I interviewed 30 detainees,

the majority of them
suspected Taliban.

Many of them
captured by Canadian soldiers

and transferred

over to the Afghan authorities.

(indistinct chatter)

I spoke to men who showed me
the scars on their bodies.

They told me they were beaten,
choked, frozen, whipped.

There was one guy
who'd been beaten so badly

that he'd forgotten who he was.

There was one young man

who had a very vivid memory
of being electrocuted

and he showed me how
he was flopping around

on the ground like a fish.

Terrible things
happened to these prisoners

when they were being
interrogated.

(eerie music)

This shook me because it wasn't
an accident of war.

It was deliberate.

It was a part of the design
of the war.

On a daily basis,

prisoners transferred
from Canadian custody

into cruel hands.

(reporter 1):
...have no evidence

of the specific allegations
in the global...

(reporter 2):
Why was this information

not brought up
in this house before?

(Graeme): My stories
caused uproar, debate,

and investigations.

The Afghan and Canadian
governments

tried to deny
that torture was happening.

(reporter 3): ...evidence
there is any access

blocked to the prisons.

(reporter 4):
Pourquoi n'avez-vous pas eu

les mêmes exigences?

to confirm the truth.

Ansari Baluch, an investigator

for the Afghanistan Independent

Human Rights Commission.

He wasn't afraid
to call out abuses

by both the government
and the Taliban,

angering the Taliban
all the more

because he worked with people
like me,

western journalists.

Working with foreigners
can taint you.

Everyone in your community

thinks that you are a spy
for the Americans.

So I was worried about
the fallout

and how that was going
to affect Ansari.

Several months
after my stories appeared,

Ansari disappeared.

I found out later

that the Taliban

had kidnapped and beheaded him.

(dark music)

I always felt bad

about dragging Ansari
into the spotlight

because he was trying to do
his human rights work quietly,

behind the scenes,

and I was trying
to make a headline.

(sombre oriental music)

in Afghanistan.

But I think
how you feel about that

depends on whether
you feel responsible.

And that's why today's meeting
is going to be tough.

I've tracked down
Ansari's family.

(speaking in foreign language)

Mokhtar is his nephew.
Anargul is his daughter.

They say
that the human rights advocate

wouldn't listen to the family's

concerns about his safety.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): When the Taliban
snatched Ansari

and asked for a ransom,

to meet the kidnappers.

(Graeme): You started
digging in the earth.

- Yeah.

(Graeme): Ah, the clothes.

- Yes.

(Graeme): I'm sorry, my friend.

That must have been
incredibly hard.

(sighing, sniffling)

- And his hands.

I'm sorry, my friend.

(speaking in foreign language)

And Shahid in red is a martyr.

- Yeah.

(melancholic string music)

(Graeme): I think what happened

to my friend Ansari Baluch

is symbolic of the ways
that we as foreign journalists

put our friends into danger.

It's something that
we really have to grapple with

about whether or not the things
that we ask people to do

are worth it.

Ansari was just one
of the many people I've known

killed in this endless war.

A journalist who worked
with Canadian reporters,

a tribal leader who helped me
to understand local politics,

A Canadian soldier
who protected me in battle.

Like so many others who died,

they wanted
a better Afghanistan.

One of the things

is how much of that striving
was wasted.

In part because of the abuses
and the corruption

of our supposed allies.

A lot of the western aid money
for schools and hospitals

In recent years,
poverty's gotten worse.

More than half the population

now lives

These days, what separates
squalor from splendour

are guards and gates.

(vehicles bustling)

Inside wealthy enclaves,

the elites enjoy
their parks and fountains.

(hooves clopping)

None of this existed
when I first came here

to Kandahar.

Certainly not this fountain.

I mean, this is a dry country.

It's one of the poorest
countries in the world.

And so to see this,
it's pretty stunning.

And it really gives you a sense

that some people are doing
pretty well for themselves

in this war.

And it's actually, you know,

this is part of the reason
why the war goes on

because it's good business.

Not all of the wealthier
is from corruption,

but this is not
the kind of neighbourhood

where it's safe to ask people
how they made their fortunes.

The drug trade,
stolen aid money,

all kinds of schemes

have made Afghanistan

one of the world's
most corrupt countries.

A problem so big, so obvious

that government leaders
don't really try to deny it,

as National Security Advisor
Hamdullah Mohib told me.

- To get quick fixes,

we empowered
some of the very warlords

that people were fed up with.

We put them in positions
of ministries and governors.

As businesses, they were given
lucrative contracts.

(Graeme): Police chiefs.

(tense music)

Vice presidents.

Governors.

Men who have been accused

by international
human rights organizations

of gross violations.

Many of them
warlords of the past

still have a grip
on Afghanistan.

- I think there has been
a lot of injustices

in the last 18 years

conducted by our government
or people,

and I think whether willingly
or unwillingly,

however it has happened,

but I think it has led to people

joining the Taliban.

There has been a lot
of corruption in the government

and I think we should not
free ourselves from that.

Own it and fix it.

(rumbling)

(indistinct chatter)

(Graeme): Widespread corruption

has not been the only thing
driving people to the Taliban.

There have also been
mounting civilian casualties

in the US-led war.

This is where
they count the numbers

and track the abuses,

the Afghanistan Independent
Human Rights Commission.

It says a lot
about the situation

that any sort of
official building

looks like a fortress
with intense security checks.

It's so tight that they took
my chocolate away from me.

(laughing)

They think
I'm going to kill someone

with a chocolate bar.

- They took the pills too.

- Oh yeah, the cough drops.

My good friend Shaharzad Akbar
heads the commission.

(Graeme): Akbar's family
spent the Taliban years

in a refugee camp.

Her parents firmly believed
in education for women

and she went on to become
the first Afghan woman

to study at Oxford University.

- The future of human rights...

(Graeme): At 33 years old,

she's probably the leading
human rights advocate

in Afghanistan.

- ...for our international
partners.

(Graeme): What bothers Akbar

is the sheer level of carnage
inflicted by both sides.

(eerie flute music)

(Graeme): You can really see
that footprint of war

on the most vulnerable,
the children.

Over the years,
I've seen far too many

of the war's youngest victims.

This generation has grown up
in a world shaped by violence.

Recent years have been

because of increased fighting
on all sides.

(indistinct chatter)

One of my friends
is trying to do something

here at an orphanage
just outside of Kabul,

home to 150 children
from toddlers to teens.

Mariam Wardak takes in
as many orphans as she can.

- We have people
coming to our door every day

saying that we have
another orphan.

We can't accept it

because we have exceeded
our capacity.

Everybody has become numb
to the children of war.

How can you become numb
to something like that?

(Graeme): Wardak comes from
a prominent family.

Her father was a famous rebel
against the Soviet invaders,

she recently worked
as a senior security official

for the Afghan government.

And now, she's dealing with
the human consequences

of rising insecurity.

The children
at Wardak's orphanage

have suffered at the hands
of all sides of the war.

The Taliban
as well as the Americans

and the Afghan government.

in the fighting.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): Hamidah
saw her mother gunned down

by the Taliban.

his family was killed
in crossfire.

- Do you know who fired
against your family?

(children screaming)

- War is blind.

They don't know
who to be angry with,

they don't know
who to look forward to,

they just understand
that there is violence

and that they're afraid that
they can get in the crossfire

between the Taliban

or the Afghan National Defence
and Security Forces

that could cost them their life

like it has cost
their parents' lives.

They know
that they need to fear both.

But they don't understand

who's the good guy
and who's the bad guy.

(eerie flute music)

(Graeme): It can be hard

at times to tell the difference

between the supposed good guys
and the bad guys.

That's what Ayesha Wolasmal
discovered

once she took off
her soldier's uniform.

- When I was in a uniform,

my entire understanding
of the situation

was a very kind of
security-based understanding.

But it was only
when I actually came back

to Afghanistan as a civilian,
you know,

as Ayesha, Masuma's daughter,

that I got a reality check

and I think
the strongest symbol of that

was when we took a taxi
like a Corolla

between Kabul and Kandahar.

And I'd say it's like 45 degrees

and it's really, really hot

and we're both in our burqas.

And there was an American convoy

passing.

And I'm sitting there

for the first time
not in a convoy

but just like a normal civilian.

And I sat there and I felt...

Suddenly I felt that I witnessed

the occupation in action.

Even though I had been
part of these convoys myself

but we ended up waiting
three and a half hours

for this convoy to do whatever
they were supposed to do.

And me and my mom were fine

but there were tons and tons,

long lines of cars with women,
small children.

For them it was a full-blown
occupation,

for them it was seeing

people that don't look like them

control their cities,
control their check post,

control their movement.

(gunshot)

(Graeme): In the villages,

people told her
about being terrified

of foreign troops
or Afghan government forces

as they hunted for the Taliban.

- I remember so many stories

about my relatives
telling me about how their sons

were just like taken out
in the middle of the nights,

you know?

In front of their mothers.

Black paper bags
were placed on their heads

and they disappeared.

Even two weeks ago,

I met with people not faring
night raids by the Americans

but the Americans have trained
the Afghans that well

that now the Afghans
are doing it.

Sadly that's everyday life.

The bloodshed, uh...

I mean, the sons,
the husbands, the fathers,

but also the young children.

I mean,
it's absolutely devastating.

(Graeme): The numbers
are staggering.

Since the war began in 2001,

hundreds of thousands
have been killed.

No one knows the exact count.

A cemetery for bodies
that are unclaimed,

unidentified, unknown.

It was a sad enough place

when I visited
a dozen years ago

and today
it is unbelievably bigger.

More people are killed
in this war every year

than in any other conflict
in the world.

(melancholic music)

Sometimes memories
drift back to you

in unexpected ways.

I remember one night
I was attending a play

and I started crying,

and I wept, and I wept.

I hadn't cried like that
in years.

I really, really
want this war to end.

(sirens wailing)

NATO is the most powerful
alliance in human history

by some measures.

But military efforts
to bring peace and stability

have failed.

The Taliban
have only grown stronger.

(upbeat music)

In propaganda videos
posted on their website,

the Taliban claim they are
well armed, well trained,

they can strike anywhere

and they do.

(singing in foreign language)

To find out how the Taliban
are pulling it off,

I went to see my good friend
Rahmatullah Amiri,

one of the country's
most respected

political analysts.

- Taliban are not just only
getting stronger,

they're getting organized,

they're becoming
some sort of a conventional

kind of army.

If you compare the Taliban
of today

versus the Taliban of 2014,

you see a much different group.

(sirens wailing)

(Graeme): Amiri barely survived

a Taliban attack
on the American University

in Kabul in 2016.

13 people were killed
and more than 40 injured

including Amiri.

- Four bullets hit me,

two in the abdomen

and one in the leg,
one in the arm.

(indistinct chatter)

I was pushing myself
against the ground

to get to the police

because the police was probably
10 metres away from me.

They could hear my voice
but they could not come

because the attackers
were pretty close by.

Then I thought,
"Okay, let's try a bit more."

Because my mom lost four sons.

I knew that if she lost me,

I don't think she would survive

because I am the solo
breadwinner of the family.

And...

And she's very close to me.

So I didn't give up.

(Graeme): Amiri
slowly recovered,

rebuilt his strength,

and he believes the Taliban
were doing the same.

By 2019,

from safe havens in Pakistan,

expanding their control across
Afghanistan.

(Rahmatullah Amiri):
From experience travelling

across the country,

I would say in terms of terrain,

Taliban control between
50 to 60 percent of the country

under their full control.

That's what I would say
their full control is.

If you add the contested area,
I would say 60 to 70 percent.

(indistinct shouting)

(Graeme): That is not
what National Security Advisor

Hamdullah Mohib told me.

He seems confident of victory.

(Hamdullah Mohib):
We have broken the back

of the Taliban.

They will lose their capacity

to take and hold territory.

We have a military part
to victory in this conflict.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Rahmatullah Amiri):
That's not true.

If the back of the Taliban
could be broken,

that would be from 2009 to 2014.

Where hundreds of thousands
international trips were there

and billions of dollars

were poured into reconstructions

and nation building
and everything.

That was the only times

where the Taliban
were on the back foot.

When the government
talks about that, you know,

breaking their back,

I'm telling them they haven't
reached their peak yet.

(Graeme): Wow.

(indistinct chatter)

(Rahmatullah Amiri):
The government needs to accept

Taliban as a very strong,
powerful force.

They cannot treat them
as a bunch of, you know,

insurgents
who are outside there.

No, they have
a very strong system,

both a civilian
and military system

that is right now running
almost half of the country.

(melancholic music)

(Graeme): It's hard
to get a sense

of the Taliban's real power

because it's dangerous
for an outsider like me

to travel
into the vast territory

they control.

One night in Kandahar,

we arranged to meet Abdullah,

a former Taliban commander
who grew weary of fighting

but who still stays in touch
with his former comrades.

For his own safety,

we are concealing his identity.

We hire him
to take a cellphone camera

into a Taliban region
not far from Kandahar City.

- You have to keep everything
on this little chip here.

It'll be good.

(Graeme): Local fighters
allowed him

to film these images.

They want to show
the outside world

how secure they feel
in their strongholds.

(speaking in foreign language)

(laughing)

(Graeme): These days,
the Taliban allow girls

to join the boys in study
at the local religious school.

But many families

pull their girls out of classes

when they reach puberty.

And these students
are just memorizing

verses from the Quran,

not really
getting a broad education.

(Graeme): Farmers don't seem
to mind being filmed

as they finish harvesting
the hashish crop.

Drug cultivation
is the biggest source

of cash income
for these people.

Other farmers plant poppy seeds
for the next season's opium.

Both sides of the war

earn tens of millions
of dollars a year

from illegal drugs.

The profits allow them
to buy more weapons,

seize more territory.

The drugs fuel the war.

(speaking in foreign language)

wants to hide his face

but he has a message
to broadcast on television.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): This is not
an empty boast.

Intelligence estimates
say that by early 2021,
the Taliban

already dominated
much of the countryside.

With only major cities
under government control

and under constant threat.

(tense music)

The Taliban
have shown their strength

with spectacular attacks
like this car bomb in 2018

in the southwestern province
of Helmand.

(faint sirens)

But this attack was different.

Instead of suffering quietly,

ordinary citizens
decided to speak up.

(speaking in foreign language)

In all my years in Afghanistan,

people usually debated
how to win the war

and now they started to argue
about how to make peace.

I came to this neighbourhood
in Kandahar

to find one of the organizers

of a new grassroots
peace movement.

(speaking in foreign language)

A young father of five children
Bismillah Watandost

makes his living
as a freelance journalist

and full-time activist.

(speaking in foreign language)

(rhythmic music)

(Graeme): The Helmand blast
inspired Bismillah and others

to launch
a people's peace march.

They started with just
a handful of people

but grew to a few hundred,

trekking more than
700 kilometres

across deserts,
through villages,

for almost two months.

(Graeme): Bismillah
even took the risk

of arranging to meet
with local Taliban leaders

face to face.

(Graeme): As the peace marchers

were making their way to Kabul
in June 2018,

the government and the Taliban

declared
an unexpected ceasefire.

For three days,

Afghans got a glimpse
of what peace could look like.

(lively music)

Mujib Mashal covered this story
for the New York Times.

Born in Kabul,

he is one of the best
journalists in Afghanistan.

- The miraculous thing
about those three days was

it was completely peaceful.

To me, that was a sign
that everybody's really tired.

I remember we reported
an episode from Kunduz

where some of these Taliban
fighters would come in,

so we kind of
chronicled their day,

you know, where they had kebabs,
where they had their ice cream,

at the kebab shop
they listened to music,

and as they were riding back
on their motorcycles...

it was dusk time
and the ceasefire was ending

and they were crossing a bridge,

and they were actually
hugging goodbye with the people

including the soldiers
on this side of the line.

- They were hugging
the same guys

they were going to be shooting
the next day.

- They shot at three days before

they were going to go back
to shooting them,

and probably
a bunch of those guys

are dead by now.

There was something
about that moment,

I think we have lost
even the power to imagine

that there could be a moment

where everybody feels like
they can breathe

and they don't have to shoot.

And as short as that period was

and as insignificant
in the larger loss of the war,

it kicked a sense of possibility

into people, you know?

it kicked a sense of possibility

into people, you know?

And no matter how it came about,

it was for the first time
in a long time,

not just in this conflict,

in the spectrum
of 40-year conflict

at least for my generation,

to think that
the two sides can say,

"Okay, we'll stop"
and that it actually stops.

(lively music)

(Graeme): But even as

that dream of peace took shape,

Afghans started
asking questions.

And at what cost?

Resistance to any compromise
with the Taliban

has always been
especially strong

within the urban middle class.

Many women are fearful

of losing
their hard-fought freedoms.

And I was curious about
the young generation of people

who grew up surrounded
by foreign troops

and foreign aid.

So I came here,
to Kabul University.

Mariam and her friend Adiba
study photography

in a country where the Taliban
had once banned cameras

and they have no intention

of letting anyone
turn back the clock.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): Despite
these struggles,

this generation dreams big.

And also small

with personal goals

that are breathtakingly modest.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): What clothes
would you want to wear?

(speaking in foreign language)

- I, myself?

Like men's clothes.

(Graeme): Mini skirts?

- Men's clothes, suits.

(Graeme): Men's clothes.
Oh, okay, okay.

(speaking in foreign language)

(laughing)

Something like this.

(Graeme): You want to wear
colourful clothes?

(speaking in foreign language)

Why can't you wear
colourful clothes now?

(Graeme): I want to go

for many of these young women.

She's the most famous feminist
in the country.

Your phone just pinged?
Something just happened?

Another explosion?

- Yeah, in PD 12,
there was a blast.

And we still don't know
if it has harmed anyone or not.

(Graeme): This kind of security

it used to be only embassies
that did this.

We're in
what's known as an airlock,

heavy steel doors

that are closed
on both sides of the driveway

and they're never open
at the same time.

And so, you're in a little
metal box, basically,

just in case the car explodes
while it's being checked.

(soft music)

Farahnaz Forotan is only 28

but she is one of Afghanistan's

best-known
television journalists.

I noticed you have Frida Kahlo
everywhere. Here...

Forotan revels in provocation.

She decorates her office

with the work of Mexican artist
Frida Kahlo ,

selecting images
that would shock most people

in this conservative society.

(speaking in foreign language)

- That's like you.

(laughs)

(Graeme): She used her fame

to launch
a social media campaign

called My Red Line.

(speaking in foreign language)

Asking people to talk
about the lines

that they are not willing
to cross

for the sake of peace.

(Graeme): She has travelled
across the country

collecting videos
with messages of defiance.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): My Red Line
has generated dozens of videos

with tens of thousands
of followers on social media.

But it is mostly
an urban phenomenon

in a country
that is mainly rural.

(Ayesha Wolasmal): Obviously
there's a lot more at stake

for women here, you know?

They've come a really long way

and they're right
to be really scared

of what a Taliban government
would look like.

I would struggle
to sleep at night

if I was one of them.

(Graeme): Raised
in the western world,

Ayesha Wolasmal understands
the fears of urban women.

She's no longer a soldier.

She now works with rural women
in the villages

and that gives her
a different perspective.

(casual string music)

(Ayesha Wolasmal):
That fear is very different

from the fear that women
in the rural areas have.

Because they haven't

had the same level
of progress there,

they haven't
gone from their mud house

to become parliamentarians.
(Graeme): Yeah.

- They're still
in that same mud house.

Illiteracy rates
are extremely high,

there are still girls
being married off at age 14.

So life hasn't changed.

And I always noticed this
throughout my travels.

The more
remote places you visit,

the more it becomes evident

that the discussion
at central level

is very removed
from the realities

of rural Afghanistan.

(eerie flute music)

(Graeme): I wanted to meet
women like that

but local traditions make it
very hard for a foreigner,

let alone a man.

So I asked Wolasmal
to introduce me to her friend

Dr. Aziza Watanwall Azizi

and I went to see her
in Kandahar.

(indistinct chatter)

Azizi was part of
an older generation of women

who came of age in the 1970s

before Afghanistan
plunged into war.

She studied and practised
medicine in Europe

and then she came back

at a clinic in Kandahar.

walk through her doors.

(speaking in foreign language)

(crying)

(Graeme): Dr. Azizi invited
a group of women she knows

to a tea party at her home,

a rare occasion for these women

to talk to a foreign man

and an even rarer opportunity

for me to hear
their point of view.

In Kabul,
we interviewed some women

who don't wear burqa
and they don't wear hijab even.

They say this war
is about freedom against peace.

If peace comes

and the Taliban
come back to Kabul,

they will lose their freedom.

And I want to know
if the women here

feel the same way.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): I think
in foreign countries,

people think
if Taliban come back

to take a share of power

that it will be bad for women,

that women are afraid
of the Taliban coming back.

But these women are not afraid,
I think.

Can we ask why?

(laughing)

(laughing)

(slow string music)

(Graeme): Even here
under anonymous burqas

behind high walls,

everyone has their own ideas
about the key to peace.

(child crying)

Over the mountains,

more than 1000 kilometres away,

those divergent ideas
about peace in Afghanistan

were being debated

in a city that feels like
a different world.

Doha, the capital of Qatar.

(tense music)

I've been shot at
by the Taliban,

nearly kidnapped
a couple of times,

so it feels strange

to come here and arrange
interviews with them.

you can find something
remarkable.

A kind of unofficial embassy
and headquarters

for the Taliban

with the support
of the Qatari government.

They've been here since 2013,

a sign of how far they've come
diplomatically.

The Taliban meet openly
with visiting delegations,

plan their political strategy,

(speaking in foreign language)

I was curious to meet
the younger Taliban thinkers.

Amar Zmarak is 35 years old.

Like a lot of new leaders

who work in the Taliban's
political office,

he's well-educated and worldly.

He works diligently to spread
the movement's message.

The Taliban
once banned television

but now they have
a sophisticated web presence,

active on social media

in Pashto, Dari,
English, and Arabic.

- We are the age of technology.

In our elder time
even all over the world,

there was not as much
technology as we have now.

So due to technology,
there is more knowledge,

there is more education,

there is more progress
in any field.

So we are more progressive
than the past generation.

When the world
gives an opportunity to us

to prove ourselves to the world,

what we are and what we want,

they will be surprised

and they will find us

very different.

(Graeme): Zmarak dreams
of returning to a homeland

that he has never seen.

(Amar Zmarak):
I was born in exile.

My children
are now living in exile.

So exile is now
kind of life for us.

Every day and every night
even in sleep we have dreams.

Every night we live
in Afghanistan in our dream.

(Graeme): He and his fellow
Taliban comrades in Doha

now sense
that they have a chance

of getting back home.

(soft sombre music)

The United States
waged war

against the Taliban
for almost two decades.

some not even born
when the war started in 2001.

And now the Americans also
wanted to go home.

A desperate America
needed to change strategy.

After decades of refusing

the US began to do just that.

In 2018,
the Americans came to Doha

to start official negotiations
with the Taliban...

without the Afghan government.

Mujib Mashal
of the New York Times

says the stunning reversal
came about

because the Americans
felt trapped.

(Mujib Mashal): The noose
had tightened too much.

- The military noose.
- The military noose.

The Taliban's gain of territory,

the Taliban's confidence.

The Taliban's gain of territory,

the Taliban's confidence.

There's an acknowledgment
of the fact internationally

that they are a power
to reckon with.

(Graeme): So the Americans
were forced to reckon

with Taliban's stalwarts

like this leader,
Khairullah Khairkhwa,

who was the Taliban's
interior minister

and a provincial governor.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): Captured
shortly after the fall

of the Taliban regime in 2001,

Khairkhwa spent 12 years

in the American military prison

at Guantanamo.

His detention file
describes him

as a trusted and respected
Taliban official,

a high risk to US interests.

But he was set free
by the Americans

in a prisoner exchange.

Khairkhwa went from
wearing a prison jumpsuit

to more dignified clothing
at five-star hotels.

(speaking in foreign language)

(Graeme): Khairkhwa
became a key player

in the Taliban's talks
with the Americans,

surrounded by lush gardens
and palm trees.

The Taliban negotiators,

and tortured,

found themselves face to face
with US military commanders.

(Mujib Mashal): It's a really,
really odd, bizarre image

around the table.

You have people in uniform
at the table,

people who have been involved
in special operations,

people who are very well-known

for the kill/capture missions
and things like that.

On the other side

you have pretty much
half of the Taliban delegation,

some of the most key negotiators

who've spent a decade
in orange jumpsuits

in Guantanamo.

Now the two of them
sitting across as equals.

but by negotiating
directly with the Taliban,

the Americans outraged
many of their allies

in the Afghan government.

(eerie flute music)

National Security Advisor
Hamdullah Mohib,

who spent his life
fighting the Taliban,

felt betrayed.

(Hamdullah Mohib):
I think what the Taliban

would achieve out of this
was legitimacy.

And that's goal number one.

Establish yourself

as the legitimate saviour
of Afghanistan

who has defeated a superpower

and freed the country
from their invasion.

Once you've legitimized yourself

and delegitimized
everybody else

then you want to negotiate.

That is not a negotiation,
that is a surrender.

The Afghan government,
the Afghan people

stand no chance,
no fighting chance

once that deal is struck.

Because like I said,
moral is gone.

I mean...

Perception is reality.

The perception there would be

is the Taliban
defeated the United States

and all its allies, NATO allies.

Who in their right mind
in Afghanistan

would stand in their way?

(Graeme): Activist
Farahnaz Forotan

is doing her best
to stand in their way.

Her My Red Line campaign
has mustered a lot of opinion

against compromise
with the Taliban.

(speaking in foreign language)

(tense music)

(Graeme): This poses a dilemma
for Shaharzad Akbar.

As the head of Afghanistan's
human rights commission,

she has always
advocated for women's rights.

But she is also
in favour of peace talks.

(Graeme): Interesting.

(Graeme): And what did you say?

(tense upbeat music)

Akbar went to Doha

along with
other prominent Afghans

to meet the Taliban.

She pushed Khairkhwa
and his comrades

on where they stood
on women's rights.

But his answers were too opaque

to reassure her.

(speaking foreign language)

(Graeme):
So when the Taliban say

they're committed to protecting
the rights of women

that have been given to them

by the sacred religion of Islam,

what does that mean?

(indistinct chatter)

(Graeme): Despite the tensions
and mistrust,

by February 2020,

the Americans and the Taliban
managed to pull off a deal.

The Taliban paraded
to the signing ceremony,

triumphant.

Maybe they didn't win the war,

but the Americans had failed
to defeat them.

And the United States
was finally admitting it.

(shouting in foreign language)

- It doesn't show our victory,

but definitely shows
the loss and the weakness

of the Americans

and all other foreign troops
and foreign countries

who have troops in Afghanistan.

(indistinct chatter)

(Graeme): Inside
a Doha hotel ballroom

packed with dignitaries
from around the world,

a historic handshake

between the US Special Envoy
for Afghanistan

and a Taliban leader.

Something hard to imagine
in previous years.

(applause)

(sombre music)

But this was not a peace deal.

There was no ceasefire
on the horizon,

no vision for
the future Afghan state.

The Taliban promised
to prevent Al-Qaeda
or other groups

from using Afghan soil
for terrorism.

The Americans promised
to pull out of the country

if the Taliban started talking
with the Afghan government.

The US hoped that somehow
the two sides could reach

a compromise across
the battle lines.

(music escalates)

(sirens wailing)

But that hope vanished

once the Americans
withdrew the last
of their troops.

A corrupt government and
its demoralized forces

collapsed in a matter of weeks.

By August 2021,
the victorious Taliban

had swept back into power.

Hamdullah Mohib remained

to the President
until the very end.

(Hamdullah Mohib):
I think the word peace

gives warmth
to everyone's heart.

People immediately assume
that we will have stability.

Unfortunately,
that's not always the case.

(speaking in foreign language)

If you strong-arm us

into accepting
whatever deal you strike,

you're going to banish us
from our own country.

We would be seen as traitors.

There would be no space,
there would be no room for us.

The Taliban are extremists

so you may see a bloodbath
on the streets of Kabul.

So this was not
a simple matter of negotiation

in a difference of opinion
over policy,

this is about the future
of my country, my people,

quite literally, our lives.

(slow string music)

(Graeme):
Those left behind will live

under Taliban rule,
something they could not
ever have imagined.

(speaking foreign language)

(Graeme): Already,
threats to her life

had forced Farahnaz Forotan
to flee the country.

Shaharzad Akbar chose to stay
until the last minute,

even as she saw her dreams
for the future vanish.

(Rahmatullah Amiri):
People want peace,

that's one thing.

How they want it

is subject to
different interpretations,

different groups,
different ethnicities,

different areas.

Most of the people
in Afghanistan

want international troops
to withdraw from this country.

Having said that,

they also want
the Taliban to compromise

with the other Afghans.

That's the two things.

Nobody wants
to go to the Taliban Rule

of 1994 to 2001.

And nobody wants the current

corrupt government options
either.

So there must be some story
in between.

(Graeme):
That dream of an "in-between",

of a compromise at the peace
table that would include
all Afghans,

crumbled with
the Taliban victory.

At the time,
this journey inspired me,

because I felt,
however briefly,

that there was a
chance for some kind of
negotiated end to the war.

Now very little remains
of the foreigners' plans
for Afghanistan

and the dreams we inspired,

except for painted
slogans on fortified walls.

Soon, even those
will disappear.

(daunting music)

(indistinct chatter)

Now girls are putting
their burqas back on,

and venturing out,
like so many others,

into an uncertain future,

once again
under Taliban rule.

(daunting music continues)