Taliban return to power in Afghanistan

In the first two weeks of August 2021 the Taliban took control of Afghanistan with astonishing speed. Their offensive began in earnest in May as foreign forces started to leave, and on August 6 they captured their first provincial capital, Zaranj. Within days Herat, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif fell, often with little fighting. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15, and the Taliban entered Kabul the same day, twenty years after U.S.-backed forces had driven them out.¹

The collapse was the end of the War in Afghanistan that began after the September 11 attacks of 2001. The United States and its allies had toppled the Taliban for sheltering al-Qaeda, spent two decades and trillions of dollars building an Afghan army and government, and fought a long insurgency. In February 2020 the Trump administration signed the Doha agreement with the Taliban, setting a path for U.S. withdrawal, and President Joe Biden confirmed in April 2021 that all troops would leave. Afghan government forces, dependent on U.S. air support and contractors and weakened by corruption and local deals, mostly gave up as the Taliban advanced.²

Chaos followed at Kabul's airport, where Western countries ran an evacuation that moved about 124,000 people by August 30, while a suicide bombing near the airport on August 26 killed 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans. The Taliban formed an interim government led by Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada as supreme leader and restricted women's education and work. Aid and banking systems collapsed, and Russia formally recognized the Taliban government in 2025, but most countries still have not.²³