Afghanistan

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. 

President Ashraf Ghani earlier flew to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif - traditionally an anti-Taliban bastion - to try to rally pro-government forces. The removal of the country's army chief, General Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, was confirmed to the BBC on Wednesday. He had only been in the post since June.

The Taliban armed group has taken control of Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni province, about 130km (80 miles) southwest of capital Kabul. It becomes the 10th provincial capital to fall within days. A government source tells Al Jazeera that the Afghan government has offered the Taliban a share in power so long as the rising violence in the country comes to a halt.

The warlords return to playing a major military role is a key part of President Ashraf Ghani’s national mobilization plan to halt the Taliban’s nationwide offensive but is raising fears that at best it will lead to Afghanistan splintering once again into dueling local fiefdoms, setting the stage for a prolonged and messy civil war, mirroring what unfolded in the 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal.