The regime supported by the USSR lasted several years after losing all Soviet support and with the Taliban getting full Pakistani and US aid. And this ended in a horrific blood bath (not to claim the Soviet-supported regime by itself was anything to write home about).

So there's some incentive for the urban population, especially women, to resist the rise of the Taliban. It should be noted the US has spent twenty years in the nation aligned with the drug lords of what was once the Northern Alliance, a group that could, among other things, could never develop the country. It's not surprising the US could get nowhere.

It's a history of pain and tragedy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan#Taliban...