Canada is offering to resettle 20,000 Afghan refugees, including women’s leaders and journalists. Why has Australia so far been unwilling to make the same declaration?
People attempt to climb into Kabul airport in the hope of fleeing Afghanistan.
EPA
Ben Wallace, the UK defence minister was visibly upset about the fate of people left behind to face the Taliban.
Forced from their homes by fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces, thousands of families seek refuge in a Kabul park.
Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
When the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, Afghans had endured 22 years of war. The Taliban were on the rise. Little has changed after an additional 20 years of war and suffering.
Scenes of mayhem unfolded at Kabul airport overnight, as foreigners and Afghans try to flee Afghanistan following the seizure of the capital by the Taliban. This is Kabul’s ‘Saigon moment’.
When historians look back at the shambolic US exit from Afghanistan, it may increasingly appear a critical marker of America’s decline in the world, far eclipsing the flight from Saigon.
Personnel were evacuated from the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, as Taliban insurgents broke through the capital city’s defensive line.
AP Photo/Rahmat Gul
The Taliban ‘expect a complete handover of power.’ Experts explain who the Taliban are, what life is like under their rule and how the US may bear responsibility for Afghanistan’s collapse.
Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace in Kabul after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
(AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)
Emboldened by success in Afghanistan, the Taliban is now ordering religious leaders to provide them with lists of girls over the age of 15 to enter into ‘marriages’ to Taliban fighters.
For much of the country’s history, Americans won their wars decisively, with the complete surrender of enemy forces and the home front’s perception of total victory.
Afghan security forces stand guard on a roadside in Herat on Aug. 12, 2021, as the Taliban seized the city.
AFP via Getty Images
Herat is home to an India-built dam that provides water for drinking, irrigation and bathing for much of western Afghanistan. If the Taliban control that water, they control the population.
Even before the Taliban broke through, opium poppy cultivation was surging.
Reuters/Alamy
Having taken charge of multiple vital border trading posts, the Taliban is now increasingly in control of the Afghan drug trade.
President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani at the White House for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on June 25, 2021.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
Academic research in conflict zones suggests Ghani’s resignation could actually be Afghanistan’s best chance at peace – but not under the conditions the Taliban is demanding.
Making Afghan coats for sale in Herat, 1974.
Shutterstock
How an item of traditional Afghan dress became a staple of western “hippie” fashion from the 1960s right up to today.
Afghan citizens at a March 2021 rally in Kabul to support peace talks between the Taliban and the government.
Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Burqas and male chaperones for women were features of the Taliban’s extremist rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s. Those policies are now back in some districts controlled by these Islamic militants.
Taliban fighters in Uruzgan, Afghanistan.
Ton Koene/Alamy
Where did the Taliban come from and what do its members believe?
In early 2021, some Taliban fighters surrendered their weapons to support peace talks with the Afghan government. Today the Islamic extremist group is battling government forces to control the country.
Xinhua/Emran Waak via Getty Images
Two decades have passed since the US invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban’s Islamic extremist regime. Despite efforts to update its image, the group still holds hard-line views.
A handover ceremony as U.S. troops prepare to leave Afghanistan.
Afghan Ministry of Defense Press Office via AP
There is much at stake as the US withdraws troops from Afghanistan. A political philosopher explains why the US cannot escape the moral consequences of its actions.