I have a close friend who advises a project in rural Afghanistan. He says that the group he's advising says things have gotten far better since the Taliban won and the USA left, because back during the fighting the Taliban were always out in the sticks, but now they've all moved to the cities and people in the rural areas can actually breathe. So that's some confirmation that the dynamic in the email is a real thing.
(Note - that is NOT saying that things are better in Afghanistan now. Just that people in the rural areas are feeling relief. The gain for rural Afghanistan is obviously a loss for the cities.)
