A flag that appeared to be that of the Taliban — the infamous terrorist group and current government of Afghanistan — had been removed from a Brighton Beach home on Wednesday morning, the day after a local politician criticized it online.
In a video posted online by Council Member Inna Vernikov on July 23, the flag is visible waving on a flagpole outside the home, above a Palestinian flag. A spokesperson for Vernikov said the clip was filmed on July 22.
White with black Arabic script, the flag appears to be that of the Taliban, which had previously ruled Afghanistan before 9/11, and was responsible for giving Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda safe harbor to plot the terrorist attacks.
The U.S. and coalition forces ousted the Taliban from power in the months that followed, but the Taliban continued to fight a guerilla war for control of Afghanistan for two decades. The Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 after U.S. and other coalition forces withdrew from the country.
When it rose to power, the group replaced the country’s old tri-color national flag with its own, which had previously been used during Taliban rule of the country between 1991-2001.
“My constituents called me terrified, because there is a Jewish day school just a block away from here, there is a synagogue down that block, there are daycares in this neighborhood, and we have terrorist supporters living amongst us,” Vernikov said in the video.
Modern Afghanistan has been hostile for Jewish people. According to The Guardian, there was a thriving Jewish population of at least 40,000 people as recently as the late 1800s, but it has been dwindling since then. Many Afghan Jews moved to Israel after the country was established in 1948, and Zebulon Simentov, believed to be the last Jewish person in the country, left in 2021. Afghan leaders have historically supported Palestine, but its leaders have remained largely quiet in the face of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The Taliban harbored al-Qaeda operatives — including its leader, Osama bin Laden — before and after the 9/11 attacks. The regime was quickly dismantled after the U.S. and its allies invaded the country in 2001, but quickly regained strength and began taking back Afghan land while U.S. forces were still stationed in the country.
After U.S. and NATO forces withdrew in 2021, the Afghan government fell to the Taliban, which reinstated a brutal regime described by the Council on Foreign Relations as “[threatening] Afghans’ civil and political rights.” The group has crushed freedom of the press, instituted strict interpretations of religious law, and stripped women’s rights.
Vernikov claimed the U.S. immigration policies would allow support for groups like the Taliban to continue to spread.
In a post on X, the council member claimed “Open border policies allow for this and the Democrat party encourages it,” and criticized Vice President Kamala Harris — who is also the presumptive Democratic nominee for president — for her actions as the country’s “border czar.”
Republicans have slammed Harris for what they say is a failure to secure the country’s border, but the vice president was never appointed as “border czar” — rather, she was tasked with examining and improving conditions in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. In May, the Biden administration had supported a bipartisan border security bill which Senate Republicans blocked at the insistence of presidential nominee Donald Trump. Biden would subsequently issue executive orders slowing border crossings.
When Brooklyn Paper visited the Brighton Beach home on the morning of July 24, the flag was gone. Attempts to contact the homeowners were unsuccessful.
Book vendor Igor, who was waiting for customers on Brighton Beach Avenue, told Brooklyn Paper on Wednesday morning that his friend told him about the Taliban flag display.
“It is not really good news because a lot of countries have declared [the Taliban] a terrorist organization,” Igor said. “I think it is not acceptable.”
Some residents, though, were not bothered. One said that while the flag does represent an extremist group, he felt the U.S. is a “free country,” where people could put up whichever flag they wished. Another said he is from a different country, and has put up his own flag at home.
Faton, a local who asked to be identified by first name only, said he hadn’t seen the flag but did not care if someone had it up.
“If they’re gonna up the flag [of] Palestine or Ukraine, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “For me, it’s fine, why not? This is a free country.”
Vernikov said she was “happy that our exposé led to these homeowners taking down the terrorist flag that they were flying so proudly.”
“There is NO EXCUSE to publicly support terrorism,” she said. “It’s a slap in the face to every American, military member, and otherwise who was murdered under that flag.”
