Do Afghans feel differently about the Taliban now?

Former Taliban sniper Ainudeen is now the Director of Land and Urban Development in Balkh provinceImage caption: Former Taliban sniper Ainudeen is now the Director of Land and Urban Development in Balkh province

As the Taliban advanced across Afghanistan last summer, capturing territory from the Afghan government as foreign forces prepared to withdraw, we met Ainudeen, a hardened Taliban fighter, in the northern district of Balkh.

Our conversation was short, the war was still raging and there was a constant threat of Afghan government airstrikes.

A few months later, with the Taliban government freshly established, sitting over a meal of fried fish by the Amu Darya river dividing Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, Ainudeen told me he had been a Taliban sniper.

He had killed dozens of members of the Afghan security forces, he estimated, and had been injured on 10 different occasions.

After the Taliban takeover, however, he was appointed Director of Land and Urban Development in Balkh province.

When I met him in the early days of the new regime, I asked him whether he missed the “jihad” he had fought in for so long.

“Yes,” he replied bluntly.

Now, a year later, sitting behind a wooden desk with the large white and black flag of the Islamic Emirate beside it, he still seems to be adjusting to his new life.

“We were fighting against our enemies with our guns, thanks to God we defeated them, and now we are trying to serve our people with our pens.”

Ainudeen says he was happy while fighting, but also happy now.

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