A small flag shop, tucked away in the courtyard of a Kabul market, has documented Afghanistan’s turbulent history over the decades with its ever-changing merchandise.
Now the shop is filled with white Taliban flags, emblazoned with the Quran’s Muslim statement of faith, in black Arabic lettering.
On Sunday, four teen-age boys leaned over white fabric draped on a table illuminated by fluorescent lights and filled the template for the Quranic verse with black ink. Finished flags were hung over a balcony railing to dry.
The owner, Wahidullah Honarwer, 58, said that before President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Aug. 15, as the Taliban were poised to take the capital of Kabul, he produced flags from all nations that had diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. Honarwer still has those flags in stock.
“The Taliban came over and saw all those flags and said nothing to us,” he said, sitting behind a computer in his shop. He said the Taliban told him to hang on to those flags until the situation stabilises.
