Ezanullah, one of thousands of young Taliban fighters from the countryside who rode into Afghanistan’s capital over the weekend, had never seen anything like it. The paved streets of Kabul were lined with towering apartment blocks, glass office buildings and shopping malls. The plush furniture inside the Interior Ministry was like “something I thought of in a dream,” said the 22-year-old fighter from the country’s mountainous east. Read:Taliban promise women's rights, security under Islamic rule He said he plans to ask his commander if he can stay. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. The encounter highlights how much Kabul and other Afghan cities have changed in the 20 years since the Taliban, who mainly hail from rugged rural areas, last ruled the country. An entire generation of Afghans has come of age under a modernizing, Western-backed government flush with development aid. Many fear those gains will be reversed now that the Taliban are back in power and the last U.S. troops are on their way out. Thousands have flocked to the airport trying to flee, most of them men unaccompanied by families. Younger Afghans have no memory of Taliban rule but fear its return will mean the loss of freedoms. The militants imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion drove them from power. The Taliban, who largely hail from Afghanistan’s conservative countryside, have signaled moderation in recent days — offering amnesty to those who fought them, inviting women to return to work and pledging to restore normal life after decades of war. But many Afghans, particularly women, remain deeply skeptical of the group’s intentions. Ezanullah was surprised when two women said hello to him on the street. “They said we were afraid of you and thought you were horrible,” he said. “But I told them you are like my sisters, and we will let you go to school and continue your education and give you security.” “Just look after your hijab,” he added, referring to the Islamic headscarf that covers the hair but not the face. Read: Taliban announces ‘amnesty,’ urges women to join government Whether or not the Taliban have truly changed, the country they now rule is light years ahead of the one they captured in 1996 after four years of civil war following the Soviet withdrawal and the 1992 collapse of a pro-communist government. Then the city was in ruins, ravaged by warlords who would later ally with the U.S. Most Afghans traveled Kabul’s rutted roads by bicycle or in beat-up yellow taxis. There was only one computer in the entire country, and it belonged to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s reclusive leader, who did not know how to turn it on.

U.S. troops at military outposts ín eastern Syria asked variations of the same question to their top commander Saturday: What is our future here? What are the goals we need to think about?