I was surprised to read on the Time website that some Afghan villagers actually stood up to the Taliban and killed a few of them. According to the story, the villagers had invited some aid workers to come to their village to dig a well. While the aid workers were in the process of digging the well, some Taliban militants came along and tried to abduct the aid workers. According to the culture of the people, you cannot invite guests to your village to help you with something and then allow the Taliban to come along and abduct and behead them, so the villagers defended the workers.
The skirmish resulted in two of the Taliban being killed and the rest of the militants ran off into the countryside. The government has sent additional security forces to the village to protect the village from retaliation from the Taliban. I wonder how long those security forces will be there. Seems to me that they’ll have to be there forever and a day because as soon as they leave, the Taliban will be right there slaughtering the entire village!