Afghanistan

Taliban fighters have taken over some UN compounds in Afghanistan, searching and ransacking offices and in one case demanding the guards provide meals for a commander and his men, according to an internal UN report seen by Reuters. … The United Nations had some 300 international staff and 3,000 Afghan staff when the Taliban seized power on Aug. 15. The world body has started moving about 100 of them to Kazakhstan to continue working.

The Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with US and Nato forces, a confidential United Nations document says, despite the militants vowing no revenge against opponents.

9/11 and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan that followed have been defining events for the development of global jihadism during the past twenty years. With the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and IS are back in the international spotlight.

The Taliban are continuing to consolidate power in Afghanistan amid reports of violence against protesters in the eastern part of the country, a day after the Islamist group announced the “war is over” and there would be no retribution.   

US President Joe Biden has said US troops may stay in Afghanistan beyond his withdrawal deadline, as armed Taliban fighters kept desperate evacuees from reaching Kabul's airport. Mr Biden wants US forces out by the end of this month, but up to 15,000 US citizens are stranded in the country.

Almost as soon as the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other large internet companies confronted an uncomfortable decision: What should they do about online accounts that the Taliban began to use to spread their message and establish their legitimacy?

The EU will have to engage in talks with the Taliban to provide support to the Afghan people even if it does not recognise them as legitimate rulers of the country, EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Tuesday (17 August). … He said that there is agreement that the EU side would “engage in a dialogue, as soon as necessary, to prevent a humanitarian and potential migratory disaster.”

The Taliban's swift takeover of Afghanistan caught the West by surprise, as no one had expected that the Afghan government forces would not put up a fight and vanish into thin air so quickly.

Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan praised the Taliban’s conduct on Monday (16 August) and said the group, still officially designated a terrorist organisation in Russia, had made Kabul safer in the first 24 hours than it had been under the previous authorities.

As desperate Afghans were trying to escape the Taliban and board planes, during chaotic scenes at Kabul airport on Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for international unity on Afghanistan, in a briefing to an emergency session of the Security Council.