The site, taliboom.com, will be operated by a skeleton staff and will offer a wide variety of repressive chat rooms and bulletin boards.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar announced the news of the shutdown to his staff at Taliban headquarters in Kandahar.
“For those of you who have been with us for the last five years, you know it’s been an awesome ride,” he told the assembled group, many of whom wore baseball caps embroidered with the Taliban slogan: “Have You Talibanned Something Today?”
For many Taliban in attendance, the news of the shutdown came almost as a relief. “The rumor mill around this place has been working overtime,” said one junior Taliban project manager. “I kind of knew something was up when I saw that this Northern Alliance guy had parked his Saturn in my space.”
It was a very different story when the Taliban started up, in 1996, with a launch party that was the envy of repressive regimes worldwide.
But five years and many blown-up ancient statues later, the long-promised “synergy” of the regime still remained elusive-and patience finally gave out.
“At the end of the day, our regime was grimmer, bleaker, and more repressive than we’d ever dreamed it could be–but it just wasn’t profitable,” Omar conceded.
The recent fall of Kabul, as well as the current weak advertising market, contributed to the Taliban’s decision to close up shop.
“It’s a different world now,” Omar said. “The landscape has cratered–literally.”
In addition to its government, the Taliban will close down its five-month-old lifestyles magazine, Teen Taliban, which many in the magazine industry considered to be ill-conceived.
“We all worked real hard on Teen Taliban,” Omar said.
While Omar took some pride in the achievements of the Taliban’s five-year run-the banning of kite-flying and the enforcement of itchy-beard-wearing, for example–he could not hide his chagrin at the way things ended.
“I know it sounds corny, but a lot of these people are like family,” Omar said, looking around at staff members who gathered for one last farewell party. “It’s going to be weird coming in here Monday and seeing all the empty caves.”
