Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

After returning from Herat I decided to stay home for a month to reflect on the past few years, while my brother—who had since returned from his studies—stood in for me at the mosque. But before I could return to my mosque Mullah Mohammad Omar sent a car for me. His title had changed and he was now called Amir ul-Mu’mineen. We sat down in his office and he asked me about my health and my family. “It was a good idea to take a month off”, he told me. “It is good to rest. But now you should return to your work”.

Kabul had fallen to the Taliban and Mullah Saheb Amir ul- Mu’mineen wanted me to become the administrative director of the National Defence Ministry. He wrote a letter of official appointment for me, and even though I no longer wanted to work for the government, I could not turn him down. I had taken an oath in Sangisar to follow and stand by him, so if he needed me in Kabul then I would go.

I gathered a few belongings, said goodbye to my family and left for Kabul. The Taliban had reached the capital while I was in Herat and by the time I arrived Mullahs Mohammad Rabbani and Abdul Razaq had already secured the city, putting an end to the fighting between the Hizb-e Islami commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud. Like many of my colleagues in the Taliban, it was the first time I had visited Kabul.

The Taliban had also started to implement shari’a law: women were no longer working in government departments and the men throughout the city had started to grow beards. Life in the city was returning to normal. People were coming to the market again and security improved on a daily basis even though there was still a curfew in place. The fighting in the city had taken its toll, though, and many seemed to suffer psychologically.

There was little left of the previous administration: most of the offices were looted and the government departments were in chaos. Parts of the city had been completely destroyed and many of the ministries lay in ruins. Fortunately, the Ministry of Defence building appeared to be intact. When I first arrived to take up my duties there was still no budget in place and no one knew anything about the ministry’s expenditures. Most of the offices were empty; many of the former officials had had ties with the Northern Alliance and had fled Kabul, and others were unaware that the ministry was working again and did not show up for work. It was difficult for me to start work in the middle of such chaos at the same time as trying to settle in a new and unfamiliar city. I had to navigate a minefield of conflicts among ministry officials, but even though I was new to the job it wasn’t long before I was promoted and became the administrative Deputy Defence Minister. This made me responsible for all the financial and logistics affairs of the ministry. On several occasions I was even acting Defence Minister.