Read yamphoto's first-person account on encountering the Taliban and reporting on the ground in Kabul:
When I headed out to work, it had been five days since the Taliban took over Kabul. And it was Independence Day, a national holiday, when Afghans celebrate their country’s independence from Britain in 1919. I wanted to capture the mood of the city.
The protesters climbed on top of a rock foundation in the middle of a traffic circle where there was a flagpole, trying to raise the red-green-and-black Afghan flag. I climbed up too, hoping to get a view of the crowd and saw Taliban fighters start to move toward us from their guard positions in front of surrounding government buildings. Sport-utility trucks pulled up and fighters jumped off. I realized this was the kind of confrontation that could get ugly fast.
At some point I moved to take a picture of a scuffle. Someone tugged on my camera strap, and I felt the kinetic-energy connection of a fist to the side of my head. A Taliban fighter had emerged out of nowhere and sucker-punched me. He was a tall burly man, with a well-groomed thick beard. He started screaming in Dari, the local language, pointing at our cameras.
I could see him gripping his Kalashnikov tighter, and I felt intense fear. The big man kept yelling. The best thing I could do was try to de-escalate. I raised my hand and told him, “Please do not hurt us. We’re journalists, we’re foreigners.” We kept saying: “We’re media. We’re allowed to work.” Then, a surprise: The radio-wielding Taliban revealed that he was able to speak and understand English. He insisted we delete the images of what had just happened. We repeated that we were journalists, that we were documenting the news.
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