Kandahar

Kandahar functions as Afghanistan's true capital—the keystone species that anchors the entire political ecosystem. While Kabul remains the official administrative center, the Taliban's supreme leadership has resided in Kandahar since 2021, and in 2023 the spokesman's office relocated there. The city operates as de facto seat of national power, confirming what geography and history have always suggested: whoever holds Kandahar holds the Pashtun heartland, and whoever holds the heartland defines Afghanistan.

The symbolic weight is immense. Ahmad Shah Durrani founded the modern Afghan state here in the 18th century. Mullah Omar launched the Taliban movement in Kandahar in 1994, transforming it from fledgling militia to Islamic emirate by capturing Afghanistan's second-largest city. The cycle repeated in August 2021 when the movement returned to power. The province's agricultural wealth—pomegranates, grapes, apricots exported to neighbors—and its position at the junction of highways from Kabul, Herat, and Quetta make it southern Afghanistan's commercial hub.

Yet the Taliban's determination exacts severe costs. The opium ban that supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada implemented reduced poppy cultivation by over 95%, eliminating 450,000 farm jobs and costing at least $1.3 billion. Southern provinces including Kandahar experienced the sharpest economic declines after 2021 as foreign aid and security spending evaporated. Today, almost 23 million Afghans require humanitarian assistance. The regime survives through effective corruption reduction that boosted tax revenue, and through $1.9 billion in 2023 mineral and coal exports. Like an alpha predator that shapes its entire ecosystem through presence alone, Kandahar's political dominance radiates outward across Afghanistan.