The government America built and supported for nearly 20 years in Afghanistan collapsed in a single day Sunday, with the country’s embattled president fleeing and the U.S. military scrambling to evacuate personnel while Taliban fighters rolled into Kabul uncontested and prepared to announce the creation of a new Islamic nation.
Representatives from the hard-line Islamist group said the country will once again be called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the same name the Taliban had for Afghanistan during the late 1990s, when it last controlled Kabul and provided a haven for al Qaeda terrorists who directed the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In a chaotic swirl of events Sunday, American diplomats burned documents inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul. They lowered the American flag, signaling surrender in the face of a stunning insurgent offensive in which Taliban forces sweep to power across Afghanistan in a matter of weeks amid a hasty U.S. and NATO troop withdrawal.
The developments sent the Biden administration scrambling into full damage control mode in Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared on news talk shows to assert that President Biden “inherited” the withdrawal plan from President Trump and had to go along with it at all costs to avoid restarting “a war that we need to end.”
Mr. Blinken rejected comparisons to the chaotic American pullout from Vietnam nearly half a century ago, when images of U.S. helicopters chaotically evacuating people from the U.S. Embassy’s rooftop in Saigon captured global attention and laid bare America’s defeat after years of war.
Even as the world watched in disbelief Sunday at the sight of U.S. helicopters suddenly landing at the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul to airlift diplomats to an outpost at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Mr. Blinken told ABC’s “This Week” program that “this is manifestly not Saigon.”
Virtually no one predicted that the Taliban would reach Kabul so quickly. U.S. intelligence officials estimated just last week that the Afghan capital could fall within several months, but it took only a matter of days after the militants captured other key cities during the collapse of Afghan security forces. Those forces were trained for years by the U.S. military and were far better equipped than the Taliban.
While questions swirled over the extent to which the Afghan forces had been paid off, had simply fled or had receded from the front lines to align with other factions should civil war suddenly befall Afghanistan, the Al-Jazeera network aired footage of Taliban fighters inside the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul.
The Associated Press said the Afghan capital was “gripped by panic.” Many Afghans feared the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights the last time they were in power.
Thousands of Afghans lined up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings before rushing to leave the country.
National security analysts in Washington opined on whether the Taliban takeover will open the way for a new hotbed of terrorism in Afghanistan.
“The al-Qa’eda cell in Iran is likely debating how to return to Afghanistan & how to use their presence in Iran to facilitate a comms line to re-established Afghan elements,” Norman Roule, a former senior CIA official and leading Middle East expert, said in a post on Twitter.
At the same time, Taliban representatives appearing on international television networks promised a peaceful transition of power.
“We assure the people in Afghanistan, particularly in the city of Kabul, that their properties, their lives are safe. There will be no revenge on anyone,” spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the BBC.
But it was unclear what the future government will look like.
After Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country Sunday morning, Taliban representatives reportedly spent the day meeting with other former Afghan government officials at the presidential palace.
One Taliban representative said the group would soon formally declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Former Afghan officials said they hoped the militants would agree to the formation of a transitional government in Kabul.
The former officials said former Afghan President Hamid Karzai; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-i-Islami political and paramilitary group; and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, were involved in the talks.
Mr. Karzai appeared in a video posted online, his three young daughters around him, saying he remained in Kabul. “We are trying to solve the issue of Afghanistan with the Taliban leadership peacefully,” he said.
Those developments came amid political mudslinging in Washington, where Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have spent the weekend blaming each other for the chaos in Kabul.
Successive U.S. administrations have searched for an exit from the two-decade war, which began after 9/11. A U.S.-led invasion dislodged the Taliban from Kabul and engaged in a bare-knuckle campaign against al Qaeda.
With the Taliban continuing to hold territory after more than a decade of U.S. and NATO occupation in Afghanistan, the Obama administration sought to negotiate a political settlement.
The effort went nowhere for years but picked up steam during the Trump era. U.S. officials signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents. That allowed the fighters to gather strength and move quickly to seize key areas when President Biden announced plans to proceed with the withdrawal of all American forces by the end of this month.
Some analysts said Sunday that a Taliban takeover of Kabul was inevitable. “This outcome was always likely to occur whenever U.S. forces left, whether 10 years ago or 10 years from now,” said Benjamin Friedman of the libertarian-leaning Defense Priorities think tank.
“The Biden administration deserves credit for having the guts to stop propping up a house of cards,” he said. “The sad irony is peace in Afghanistan is now closer thanks to the U.S. exit and defeat of the failed government we wasted so many lives and dollars defending. Now, diplomacy should focus on negotiating the safest possible outcome for those who helped U.S. forces, including resettling them to keep them safe from Taliban reprisals.”
In recent days, Mr. Biden ordered the return of some 5,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate American diplomats and Afghan allies who worked as interpreters over the past two decades, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The U.S. withdrawal is likely to be more difficult now that the Taliban control Kabul.
Commercial flights were suspended after sporadic gunfire erupted at the international airport, said two senior U.S. military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations. Evacuations continued on military flights, but the halt to commercial traffic closed off one of the last routes available for Afghans fleeing the country.
The U.S. ambassador was among those evacuated, said officials who spoke the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing military operations. He was asking to return to the embassy, but it was not clear whether he would be allowed to.
As night fell, Taliban fighters deployed across Kabul, taking over abandoned police posts and pledging to maintain law and order during the transition. Residents reported looting in parts of the city, including the upscale diplomatic district, and messages circulating on social media advised people to stay inside and lock their gates.
Despite assurances from Taliban representatives that they would not take revenge on ordinary Afghans, The Associated Press cited reports of revenge killings and other brutal tactics in areas of the country the Taliban have seized in recent days.
One female journalist, weeping, sent voice messages to colleagues after armed men entered her apartment building and banged on her door. “What should I do? Should I call the police or Taliban?” Getee Azami cried. It wasn’t clear what happened to her after that.
One Afghan university student described feeling betrayed as she watched the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy.
“You failed the younger generation of Afghanistan,” said Aisha Khurram, 22, who is unsure of whether she will be able to graduate in two months. “A generation … raised in the modern Afghanistan were hoping to build the country with their own hands. They put blood, efforts and sweat into whatever we had right now.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.