Category Archives: Taliban

The Taliban leaders in line to become de facto rulers of Afghanistan

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The task facing the new head of state will be more challenging than 1996. But who is in the running for a governing role?

Last time the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan – in 1996 – there was never any question of what form of government they would install and who would rule the country. They were filling a vacuum, and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive cleric who had led the movement since its beginnings two years earlier, took charge.

Then, Kabul was a shattered husk, with a tiny hungry, scared population, almost no economic activity, no telephones and public transport provided by ancient Russian-made cars or 1970s buses once driven from Germany. The Taliban could impose whatever they wanted.

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How the Taliban took Afghanistan

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The departure of US forces was followed by a rout of Afghan government forces. Now, after 20 years of western intervention, Afghanistan is back under the control of the Taliban

It began with a steady trickle of military defeats. First Afghan government control was ceded to the Taliban in provincial towns and cities. Then, as the lack of resistance became apparent, bigger cities and regional capitals began to fall. Finally on Sunday the Taliban entered Kabul as the western-backed government fled the country.

The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, tells Michael Safi that it marks a stunning reversal for the Afghan government, which had begun negotiating a deal with the Taliban in recent months. And as deeply flawed as the government in Kabul has been for the past 20 years, it has created space for the education of girls and a free press. All of that is now in grave doubt as Afghans wait to see whether their new Taliban rulers plan to carry on where they left off in 2001. We hear voices from inside Afghanistan including reporter Zahra Joya, who was a child when US forces invaded in 2001 and drove out the Taliban. She describes her fears for what will come next.

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‘I stand squarely behind my decision’: defiant Biden defends withdrawal from Afghanistan – video

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Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan even after Taliban forces took Kabul, saying: 'I stand squarely behind my decision.' Striking a defiant tone, the US president admitted the situation in the country had deteriorated faster than anticipated, but said it showed there would never be a good time to withdraw US forces. 'American troops cannot and should not be dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,' Biden said. 'We gave them every chance to determine their own future; we could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.'

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Raab: pace of Taliban takeover ‘caught everyone by surprise’ – video

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Britain will use all the means at its disposal, including sanctions and diplomacy, to hold the Taliban to account in Afghanistan, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said.

In his first public appearance since the crisis began, Raab said that 'everyone was caught by surprise by the pace and the scale of the Taliban takeover', in which Kabul fell to the Islamist group over the weekend. Britain, which had initially committed 600 members of the armed forces to evacuate British nationals and former British staff, will shortly have 900 troops in Kabul.

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Swift Taliban takeover proves US and UK analysis badly wrong

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Analysis: Joe Biden and Boris Johnson five weeks ago claimed Afghan government would not fall so easily

Joe Biden could not have been clearer: a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was “not inevitable”, the US president said on 8 July. Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, was equally confident – “there is no military path to victory for the Taliban” – he told MPs earlier that day, five weeks ago.

The president said he trusted “the capacity of the Afghan military”, who were better trained, better equipped and “more competent in terms of conducting war”. The prime minister agreed: “I do not believe that the Taliban are guaranteed the kind of victory that we sometimes read about.”

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Who are the Taliban and how will they govern Afghanistan this time?

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After their lightning conquest, there is little to indicate the group will moderate their strict Islamic beliefs

The Taliban were born out of the mujahideen fighters who opposed the Russians during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979. Founded by Mullah Mohammad Omar, a local imam in Kandahar, in 1994, they were initially formed of a small group of madrassa students who were angry at the depredations of the warlords in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Their influence rapidly spread over the following two years.

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Afghans climb on to plane during takeoff in attempt to flee Taliban – video

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Desperate Afghans clung to the side of a moving US military plane leaving Kabul airport on Monday, with at least three people apparently falling to their deaths from the undercarriage immediately after takeoff. Video footage shows hundreds of people running alongside the plane as it moves along the runway of Kabul international airport. A number of people hang on to the side of the C-17A aircraft, just below the wing. Others run alongside waving and shouting

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‘The world abandoned us’: desperate Afghans try to escape Taliban – video report

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Thousands of Afghans and foreign nationals have surged on to the tarmac at Kabul airport trying to get a place on a flight out of the country, amid chaotic scenes that unfolded as the Taliban took control of the city. Fearful that the Taliban may reimpose the brutal rule they enforced before 2001, Afghans are seeking ways out of the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings

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Kabul falls to the Taliban as thousands of Afghans try to flee – video report

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The Taliban has declared that Afghanistan is under their control after they took over the presidential palace just hours after president Ashraf Ghani fled the country. The Islamist militants encountered no resistance as they took back power two decades after they were overthrown by a US-led invasion. Chaotic scenes erupted at Hamid Karzai International Airport with thousands flooding the tarmac desperate the get a flight out of the country.

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Afghanistan: western leaders react to Taliban takeover of Kabul – video

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Leaders from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have reacted to the news that the Taliban has begun taking control of Kabul after a 20-year mission to Afghanistan led by western countries. UK prime minister Boris Johnsons said, ‘we don't want anybody bilaterally recognising the Taliban’, while New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern said conversations over how the new regime is treated will be for some time in the future. US secretary of state Antony Blinken blamed ‘the inability of Afghan security forces to defend their country’ for the quick takeover while Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said he was ‘heartbroken’ at the news. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said that fighting for freedom is ‘always worth it whatever the outcome.’ 

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Chaos at Kabul airport as Taliban seize control of Afghan capital – video

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Crowds have packed the tarmac at Kabul airport in a bid to flee the Afghan capital as Taliban insurgents began taking over the city. Insurgents took control of the presidential palace. Al Jazeera showed footage of what it said were Taliban commanders in the palace with dozens of armed fighters. President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan. Many Afghans attempted the flee via road or via the airport. 

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Taliban’s Abdul Ghani Baradar is undisputed victor of a 20-year war

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Return to power of movement’s co-founder embodies Afghanistan’s inability to escape history of conflict

Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an undisputed victor of the 20-year war.

While Haibatullah Akhundzada is the Taliban’s overall leader, Baradar is its political chief and its most public face. He was said to be on his way from his office in Doha to Kabul on Sunday evening. In a televised statement on the fall of Kabul, he said the Taliban’s real test was only just beginning and that they had to serve the nation.

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Defeat amid anxious bureaucracy of western evacuation from Afghanistan

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Analysis: The speed of the fall of the country to the Taliban leaves many questions unanswered

This is what defeat looks like. Embassy burn bins blazing through day and night. The president fleeing. Helicopters and armoured SUVs shuttling foreigners to the airport, amid the anxious bureaucracy of evacuation with its queues and “go” bags at the airport, the few items that you keep packed for when you have to flee.

The speed of the fall of Afghanistan leaves many questions unanswered, not least whether the devastating humiliation for the Afghan government, its military forces and its western backers was in any way avoidable.

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A tale of two armies: why Afghan forces proved no match for the Taliban

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Poorly led and riddled with corruption, the Afghan army was overrun in a matter of weeks

The Taliban have 80,000 troops in comparison with a nominal 300,699 serving the Afghan government, yet the whole country has been effectively overrun in a matter of weeks as military commanders surrendered without a fight in a matter of hours.

It is a tale of two armies, one poorly equipped but highly motivated ideologically, and the other nominally well-equipped, but dependent on Nato support, poorly led and riddled with corruption.

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What does the Taliban’s return mean for al-Qaida in Afghanistan?

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UK defence secretary is worried that ‘al-Qaida will probably come back’ – but it is already there

As the Taliban prepare to rule Afghanistan after sweeping across the country in less than a week, an obvious question is what does this mean for the future of al-Qaida and other extremist Islamist groups committed to waging a global jihad.

There is no doubt that the astonishing rapidity of the Taliban’s victory will deliver a tremendous boost to Islamist extremists everywhere – whether al-Qaida, Islamic State, fighters in Mozambique or Syria, or jihadi fanboys in bedsits in Birmingham or Manila.

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Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’

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As city after city falls to the Taliban, women fear that the freedoms won since 2001 will be crushed

In a market in Kabul, Aref is doing a booming trade. At first glance, the walls of his shop seem to be curtained in folds of blue fabric. On closer inspection, dozens and dozens of blue burqas hang like spectres from hooks on the wall.

As the Taliban close in on Kabul, women inside the city are getting ready for what may be coming. “Before, most of our customers were from the provinces,” says Aref. “Now it is city women who are buying them.”

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Seven days that shook Afghanistan: how city after city fell to the Taliban

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Rout of government forces beginning in city of Zaranj has left country in chaos and western leaders looking on in dismay

The end for Afghan forces in the south-western provincial capital of Zaranj, a trading hub close to the Iranian border, was announced by a Taliban commander. Except that he framed it as a start, and an ominous one.

“This is the beginning,” he declared in a statement. “See how other provinces fall in our hands very soon.”

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Taliban seize four more provincial capitals in Afghanistan

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Insurgents’ seemingly unstoppable advance continues as they close in on Kabul

The Taliban’s seemingly unstoppable advance across Afghanistan continued on Friday, as insurgents took control of four more provincial capitals after their seizure on Thursday of Kandahar and Herat, the country’s second and third biggest cities.

With Afghan government forces in disarray, and amid reports that the country’s vice-president has fled, the Taliban are heading inexorably towards Kabul. They control more than two-thirds of the country, just as the US plans to pull out its last remaining troops.

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‘Nowhere to go’: divorced Afghan women in peril as the Taliban close in

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As horror stories emerge from areas that have fallen to the Islamist militants, women living alone fear they have no route of escape

There’s an old saying in Afghanistan that encapsulates the country’s views on divorce: “A woman only leaves her father’s house in the white bridal clothes, and she can only return in the white shrouds.”

In this deeply conservative and patriarchal society, women who defy convention and seek divorce are often disowned by their families and shunned by Afghan society. Left alone, they have to fight for basic rights, such as renting an apartment, which require the involvement or guarantees of male relatives.

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