After the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, the radical Islamist Taliban movement quickly seized control over the country, including entering the presidential palace in Kabul hours after former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. The situation is rapidly evolving.
The presidential palace in Kabul has now been handed over to the Taliban after being vacated just hours earlier by officials of the US-backed government. The Taliban claimed the palace with three Afghan government officials present, according to Al Jazeera, which covered events live. One Taliban security official said there was a "peaceful handover of government facilities ongoing across the country."
On Sunday, hours before the Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace the President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani left the country for Tajikistan.
Afghanistan's acting defense minister, General Bismillah Mohammadi, slammed the fleeing president in a brief tweet Sunday, writing: "They tied our hands behind our backs and sold the homeland, damn the rich man and his gang."
The Taliban has declared the war in Afghanistan over. According to Aljazeera, the streets of Kabul were quiet on Monday, but there were scenes of chaos and panic at the international airport as hundreds of Afghans desperate to leave the country flooded the tarmac. The United States and other Western nations were also scrambling to evacuate their diplomats and citizens.
Taliban officials say they had received no reports of any clashes from across the country a day after the armed group seized the capital, Kabul, and the US-backed government collapsed.
“The situation is peaceful, as per our reports,” one of the senior members of the Taliban tells Reuters news agency. He declines to be identified.
The US withdrawal from the country opened a clear path for the Taliban to take on and defeat the Afghan security forces. In the past several day, militants managed to capture the whole country. Many major cities fell with little to no resistance, including the key city of Jalalabad, which the Taliban seized on Sunday.
At the same time, U.S. President Joe Biden stated he has “authorized the deployment of approximately 5,000 U.S. troops to make sure we (the U.S.) can have an orderly and safe drawdown of U.S. personnel and other allied personnel, and an orderly and safe evacuation of Afghans who helped our troops during our mission and those at special risk from the Taliban advance”.
In addition, Biden directed the Secretary of State to support President Ghani and other Afghan leaders as they seek to prevent further bloodshed and pursue a political settlement. Secretary Blinken will also engage with key regional stakeholders. Ambassador Tracey Jacobson was placed in charge of a whole-of-government effort to process, transport, and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies.
Biden also urged Taliban representatives in Doha, via our Combatant Commander, that any action on their part on the ground in Afghanistan, that puts U.S. personnel or their mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong U.S. military response.
Large airlines including United Airlines, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic said they were not using Afghanistan’s airspace following the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
The international community, more than 60 members of the international community called for the “safe and orderly departure” from Afghanistan of foreign nationals and Afghans.
The country is now facing the Taliban's return to power, which, if it's anything like it was in the 1990s, would mean a deterioration in civil liberties, particularly for women and girls whose freedoms grew under the civilian government.