The Taliban flood Kabul, the president flees, and the Afghan government collapses; United States quickly evacuates

Taliban militants, who have seized control of Afghanistan, entered the capital Kabul on Sunday, seized the presidential palace and demanded the unconditional surrender of the Afghan government, amid a constant noise of helicopters carrying Americans and other foreigners trying to get to safety.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who issued a recorded message of encouragement to the population the day before, fled the country, according to associates. His departure leaves a void that the Islamist insurgent group is expected to fill quickly.

The swift and humiliating defeat of two decades of US-led efforts to remake Afghanistan has opened a new and uncertain chapter in which Afghans opposed to the Taliban fear a return to their brutal medieval style of rule that stripped away civil rights, subjugated women and despised education.

Since the early hours of Sunday, thousands of panicked Afghans have stormed ATMs, sparked massive traffic jams in the streets and fistfights, and sheltered in their homes as offices, including government agencies, emptied and Shops were boarded up to prevent looting. At night, the streets became silent, as if in terrified anticipation of what was to come.

But the chaos at the Kabul airport, with thousands of desperate people trying to leave the country, prompted the Pentagon to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan, joining another 4,000 deployed in the last 72 hours.

An 8pm curfew was imposed, presumably by the Taliban, and a white Taliban flag was seen flying over the presidential palace. Al Jazeera television broadcast footage it said showed armed Taliban militants walking the halls of the palace and sitting in its opulent chambers next to Ghani's desk.

Twenty years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and eliminate the safe haven of Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, and after spending more than $80 billion to create of an Afghan army and, later, of government institutions, the same group, the Taliban, ruled again, and the United States was fighting a headlong retreat.

"The Taliban have won by the trial of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honor, property and self-preservation of their countrymen," said Taliban's top political official, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, proclaiming victory. according to Al Jazeera.

As Taliban insurgents moved through the capital on Sunday, the evacuation of the US embassy got under way and was completed by the end of the day. Helicopters airlifted the US diplomats to the fortified airport to await their departure. In recent hours, diplomats have destroyed sensitive files, smashed laptops and disabled mobile phones. The US flag was reportedly lowered and removed as senior embassy officials left.

Other Western embassies also closed.

Sporadic shots were heard throughout the day and night. It was unclear whether these were skirmishes or celebrations. By nightfall, the Afghan soldiers who had been guarding the checkpoints had mostly disappeared; some could be seen changing their uniform for civilian clothes.

“Today will be the end of our lives,” a woman who gave her name as Shakila Sarwari, 22, said in an interview. Like tens of thousands of Afghans, she works for one of the Western agencies that has been operating in the country for nearly two decades, and she fears being an immediate target of the Taliban.

A large contingent of soldiers was stationed outside the United Nations compound, and the streets leading to the government palace were blocked off, possibly in anticipation of the arrival of a Taliban delegation.

Abdullah Abdullah, who was leading the government delegation to talks with the Taliban taking place in Doha, Qatar, said in a video message that Ghani had left Afghanistan.

"God will hold him accountable and the people of Afghanistan will pass judgment," Abdullah said. Although on the same side, he and Ghani have long been rivals, as the president rejected demands that he step down to reach a peace deal with the Taliban.

Ghani later issued his own statement on social media, saying that he had made the painful decision to leave the country he loved or be executed by Taliban militants.

The Taliban claimed the fighters were entering the city only to protect themselves from looting and disorder as Afghan government security wanes. "We do not want to enter Kabul by military means," the Taliban leadership said in a statement.

"Citizens of Kabul should not be afraid of the mujahideen," the statement said, using the term Taliban militants call themselves, adding that the fighters "cannot enter anyone's home, harass or harass anyone." no one".

With astonishing speed, the Taliban launched a relentless march across the country just two weeks ago, capturing territory and then provincial capitals and finally major cities. Even as US intelligence predicted that it would take the Taliban a month or more to take Kabul—and as President Biden and other US officials insisted the capital's fall was not inevitable—Taliban fighters had surrounded the city ​​of 6 million people on Sunday and were advancing by nightfall.

Biden, who had recently announced that all US forces would leave Afghanistan in September, sent a contingent of 3,000 US Marines and soldiers on Thursday to help evacuate the embassy and transport some of the estimated 20,000 Afghans working for the United States. And they are in grave danger. On Saturday, he added 1,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan to help in the rapidly worsening crisis.

The embassy had been evacuated on Sunday night, and staff were either at the airport or had already flown out of the country. In daylight, smoke could be seen rising from the diplomatic compound as officials burned sensitive material. Although the State Department initially insisted that it was not going to close the embassy completely, those plans are changing.

Helicopters began removing embassy staff early on Sunday, hours after the Taliban seized nearby Jalalabad, the last major city other than the capital not in their hands.

Despite the collapse of the Afghan government and mounting criticism, the administration appears unwilling to back down from its decision to withdraw all US troops and has pointed the finger at the lack of leadership by demoralized Afghan government forces. Critics say the abrupt departure of US and NATO troops emboldened the Taliban.

"One more year, or five more years, of a US military presence would not have made any difference if the Afghan military is unable or unwilling to hold its own country," Biden said in a statement Saturday.

Abrarullah Murad, a lawmaker from the province where Jalalabad is located, said insurgents took over the city after elders negotiated the fall of the government there, the Associated Press reported. There was no fighting when the city surrendered, Murad said.

Acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan tried to reassure the population that Kabul would remain "safe".

But Taliban rule poses terrifying possibilities. As Islamic militants advance, they are reported to be resorting to some of the tactics of their brutal 1990s government, which is based on a radical interpretation of Islam. According to some reports, advancing fighters have executed soldiers who have surrendered and forced women to marry.

The Taliban insist they have reformed and are a more modern and tolerant group, though there is little evidence to support that claim. In the statement released on Sunday, the group said it would offer "amnesty" to those who collaborated with the Afghan government or foreign forces.

The shape of the new negotiations between the Taliban and what remains of the Afghan government was unclear. The two sides participated in the Doha talks, which have been presented by the United States as an effort to reach a political solution to the conflict. Those talks began when the Trump administration brokered a deal with the Taliban in which the militant group pledged not to attack US forces; in exchange, the United States was to begin withdrawing in May. Apart from that measure, however, the Taliban never agreed to anything more substantial.

As US officials hailed the Doha talks as the "way forward," and Taliban proxies played along, their foot soldiers stormed Afghanistan for a military solution.

US officials either misread their adversary or prioritized returning troops home over any other outcome.

On Sunday, Biden remained at the Camp David presidential retreat and met by video conference with his entire national security team, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and CIA Director William Burns. He was not scheduled to make a public statement or speech.

Biden received an update on “the drawdown of our civilian personnel in Afghanistan, the evacuations of SIV [special visa] applicants and other Afghan allies, and the current security situation in Kabul,” a White House official said.

Just a few days ago, Biden scoffed at the notion -- concluded by government intelligence services and floated by journalists -- that Kabul could collapse within a month. On Sunday, it was over, with the administration trying to push back against criticism that it had miscalculated.

Blinken, the administration's face to reporters on Sunday, defended the US decision to withdraw and the way it was handled. He noted that the main goals of the United States in Afghanistan were to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and eliminate Al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan; he said those goals were achieved. However, the United Nations says the Taliban never cut ties with al Qaeda, as the United States demanded.

Blinken also rejected comparisons of the US's hasty flight from Kabul to that from Saigon in 1975, when similar photos of helicopters rescuing Americans from the US embassy in the Vietnamese capital became historically iconic images of the abandonment of a ally of the United States.

"Clearly this is not Saigon," Blinken said.

Yam reported from Kabul and Wilkinson from Washington. Editors Nabih Bulos contributed from Dubai and Eli Stokols from Washington.