Taliban house-to-house searches: “They even looked inside the bathroom water heater”

KabulThe knock came late at night, the kind of knock that doesn’t belong to ordinary life. It was around eleven. I don’t remember the exact month, but I remember the sound clearly. It froze the air inside our home.

My brother opened the door. Two Ranger pickup trucks filled with Taliban fighters were parked outside. They told him to call our father. When he came, they immediately asked, “What did you do with the vehicle and the weapon?”

My father had been an army officer under the former government. After the fall of the republic, former military personnel were ordered to hand over all government property. He had already surrendered everything and received an official letter confirming that nothing remained with him.

He showed them the letter. After a tense exchange, they finally left. Their behavior was harsh and humiliating. My brother tried to argue, but my father stopped him, we all knew that could make things worse. It was our first shock. The only relief was that they did not enter the house.

A few months after the Taliban came to power in August 2021, small resistance movements were still active in different places of Afghanistan. Panjshir, a Tajik-populated province, had not fully surrendered, and in Kabul there were occasional attacks against the Taliban. That was when the first large-scale house-to-house searches began across the city. Almost every house was searched. But not all neighborhoods were treated the same.

Differences between neighborhoods

I remember some of my university friends who were Pashtun saying, “They didn’t search our house. They just wrote ‘searched’ on the door and left.” Their relief stood in painful contrast to our fear. In Tajik and Hazara neighborhoods, it was different. The searches were thorough, aggressive, and repeated. In areas like Khair Khana, where we live, people knew it was only a matter of time before their turn came.

When the searches reached our area, we prepared during the night. We removed anything that could cause suspicion. My father’s medals, awards, and documents, anything linked to his past, felt dangerous. The next morning, I packed them into a bag and took them to my uncle’s house in another part of Kabul, where searches had already taken place.

On the way, I had a strange feeling, as if I were in a foreign country. Nothing felt familiar anymore. It did not feel like my homeland. Then I went to work, but I could not focus. I called my mother three times. “Did they come?”, I asked. “Not yet. They are in the next street", she said.

When I returned home, it was our street’s turn. My brothers had taken my father to my uncle’s house. At home, it was only my mother, my brothers, and me.

The Taliban knocked and entered. No women accompanied them. Only armed men with long beards and local clothing, faces that inspired fear. They searched everything: mattresses, pillows, under carpets, behind the refrigerator, inside cupboards... They even checked the water heater in the bathroom.

My mother and I were in my room when they entered. They threw all my clothes from the closet onto the floor. They showed no respect for privacy, for womanhood, or for personal space. The way they searched a young woman’s room and clothes had no place in any culture, yet they did it without hesitation. With their dirty boots, they stepped on carpets and clothes. They looked at everyone as if we were criminals. When they found nothing, they left and wrote “searched” in Pashto on our gate.

But that was not the last search.

After that, our mainly Tajik neighborhood was searched two more times. The resistance groups opposing the Taliban are largely associated with Tajiks, and the Taliban seem to assume that Tajik areas hide weapons and fighters. Each search felt worse than the one before. They even dug in house courtyards. The level of fear grew with each operation. It was no longer just a search; it felt like collective punishment.

Some families could not endure it anymore and left the area. One of our neighbors, an elderly man who lived with his wife and two young daughters, moved away after repeated searches. He told my Father, he was afraid that one day the presence of armed men in his house, again and again, might create a situation he could not control, especially for his daughters. His fear was not about weapons. It was about dignity, safety, and the vulnerability of having young women in a house that strangers could enter at any moment.

It has been about eight months since the last search, but the fear has not disappeared. Checkpoints are everywhere in our area. Vehicles are stopped and inspected constantly. The sense of being watched never leaves.

New penal code

What makes all of this heavier is that the searches are no longer the only source of fear.

Recently, the Taliban approved a new penal code for the courts. In Article 23, it states that anyone who has information about an opponent of the government and does not report it to the Taliban can be punished with up to two years in prison. Providing shelter to such a person can lead to five years in prison.

This means the pressure is no longer only at the door, it is now between people.

Trust, which once held communities together, is slowly being replaced by suspicion. Neighbors who once shared food and grief now measure their words. Families are careful about who visits them. Conversations stop when someone unfamiliar enters the room. The fear is no longer just of armed men searching houses; it is of being accused because of silence, because of a relative, because of a guest, or simply because someone points a finger.

It feels as if the walls of our homes are no longer the only things that have ears, society itself has been turned into a system of surveillance.

For us, the searches were terrifying, but they ended. This new reality does not end. It follows us into our relationships, our conversations, and even our thoughts. We are not only afraid of what might be found in our homes, but of what might be said about us by others trying to protect themselves.