After the US forces left the country, the Islamist group Taliban regained complete control over Afghanistan. The Taliban are currently settled in the presidential palace, but the self-proclaimed freedom fighters began taking over the provinces a few weeks ago.
Notice the immediate change of clothes.
On April 15, US President Joe Biden officially announced that US troops would leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. This was supposed to put an end to the 20-year war, the longest in the history of the United States. More than 18,000 Afghans cooperated with the United States during the war: translators, drivers, engineers, security guards, employees of American embassies, and so on. Following the decision to withdraw the soldiers, Afghans applied for immigrant visas as if they knew this war wasn’t over and if their identities were to be disclosed in any way, it would spell out certain death for them.
All hell broke loose on July 31, then the Taliban militants entered Herat and Kandahar and started firing rockets at Kandahar airport, disrupting the flight schedule. Since that day, the Taliban recaptured their old territory city by city, province by province. The Afghan military was not prepared for such an attack and stood no chance. Even airstrikes didn’t help all that much —hundreds of dead on both sides at this point.
On August 13, after a fierce fight, Taliban militants captured the second and third largest cities in Afghanistan — Kandahar, and Herat, forcing President Ashraf to demobilize all available forces as the Taliban militants approached the capital. On August 15, the Taliban took over Jalalabad without any resistance from the locals and went for the capital — Kabul. Their message on Al Jazeera TV network assured residents that the militants wanted to take control over the capital “peacefully,” but with all the chaos, there were bound to be numerous casualties.
It’s pure chaos right now.
People are fleeing the Afghanistan by the thousands. Some gamble with their lives and literally grab onto the planes in hopes of getting out of that hell hole only drop down from the sky; others are waiting patiently for their turn. Women are being oppressed and forced to go back to the “good old days” of covering their faces and getting beaten if they walk the streets alone. This does not look good.
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