The Taliban say they've changed. On the ground they're just as brutal.

His father and brother were caught last month using smartphones in their home district of Arghistan, an area effectively ruled by the movement. The insurgents confiscated the devices, which could be used for supposedly un-Islamic behavior such as playing music and videos, and forced the men to swallow their SIM cards. Kamaluddin recounted the incident as he waited to return from Kandahar, the government-controlled provincial capital. “They will put me in prison if they see me like this,” he said. “If the Taliban come back, they will bring darkness.” The Taliban, ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion 20 years ago, are poised to expand their influence as American forces, following a pact signed in Feb. 2020, plan to leave the country later this year. The group has sought in recent months to present themselves as a responsible state actor to regional powers and the West. Indeed, some of their most-violent punishments, such as amputations for accused thieves, are used less frequently than in the 1990s as they seek to avoid alienating Afghans. Yet accounts from Kamaluddin and others living under Taliban rule, as well as insurgents themselves, suggest that the group’s governance is as ruthless as ever and, with decades of experience, also more adept.