The government America built and supported for nearly 20 years in Afghanistan collapsed in a single day Sunday.
The country’s embattled president fled, the U.S. military scrambled to evacuate personnel, and Taliban fighters rolled into Kabul uncontested preparing to announce a new Islamist state.
Representatives from the group said the country will once again be called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the same name Afghanistan had in the late-1990s, when the Taliban last controlled Kabul and provided safe-haven for the al Qaeda terrorists who planned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In a chaotic swirl of events Sunday, American diplomats burned documents inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul and lowered the American flag, signaling surrender in the face of a stunning offensive that saw Taliban forces sweep across Afghanistan in a few weeks amid a hasty U.S. and NATO troop withdrawal.
The developments sent the Biden administration scrambling into full damage control mode in Washington, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken appearing on news-talk shows Sunday to assert that President Biden “inherited” the withdrawal plan from the former President Trump and had to go along with it to avoid restarting “a war that we need to end.”
Mr. Blinken rejected comparisons to the chaotic American pullout from South Vietnam nearly a half-century ago, when images of U.S. helicopters evacuating frantic people from the American Embassy’s rooftop in Saigon captured and laid bare America’s defeat for the world to see.
SEE ALSO: Ghani flees Afghanistan, U.S. diplomats burn documents as Taliban enter Kabul
Even as the world watched in disbelief Sunday at the sight of U.S. helicopters suddenly landing at the American embassy compound in Kabul to airlift diplomats to a new outpost at Kabul International Airport, Mr. Blinken told ABC’s “This Week” program that “this is manifestly not Saigon.”
Few had predicted the Taliban would reach Kabul so quickly.
Just last week, U.S. intelligence officials estimated the Afghan capital could fall within several months. But it took only a matter of days after the militants captured other key cities around Afghanistan amid the collapse of Afghan security forces, despite those forces being trained for years by the U.S. military and being 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 if Afghanistan should collapse into civil war, the Al-Jazeera network aired footage of Taliban fighters inside the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday.
The Associated Press characterized the Afghan capital as being “gripped by panic,” with many Afghans fearing the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that, among much else, all but eliminated women’s rights the last time it ruled the country.
Thousands of Afghans rushed to leave the country Sunday, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.
SEE ALSO: Blinken: Biden admin ‘inherited’ Afghan situation from Trump
National security analysts in Washington debated Sunday whether the Taliban takeover will open the way for Afghanistan becoming a new terrorist haven.
“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, wrote on Twitter.
At the same time, Taliban representatives appearing on international television networks promised a peaceful transition of power in Kabul.
“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,” one spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told the BBC on Sunday.
But it was unclear as of Sunday night 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, even as former Afghan officials said they hoped the militants would agree to the formation of a transitional government in Kabul.
Those former officials said the talks involved former Afghan President Hamid Karzai; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e-Islami political and paramilitary group; and Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
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 that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when a U.S.-led invasion dislodged the Taliban from Kabul and fought in a bare-knuckle campaign against al Qaeda.
With the Taliban having continued to hold territory after more than a decade of U.S. and NATO occupation in Afghanistan, the former Obama administration sought to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.
The effort went nowhere for years, but picked up steam during the Trump era, with U.S. officials inking 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 Mr. 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 always had been ordained.
“This outcome was always likely to occur whenever U.S. forces left, whether 10 years ago or 10 years from now,” claimed 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.”
Recent days have seen Mr. Biden order the return of some 5,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate American diplomats and Afghan allies who worked as interpreters alongside the U.S. 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 controls Kabul.
Commercial flights were suspended after sporadic gunfire erupted at the international airport Sunday, according to two senior U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing 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 American ambassador was among those evacuated Sunday, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing military operations.
Ross Wilson 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 in 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 revenge would not be taken 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 now unsure of whether she will be able to graduate in two months’ time as planned. “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.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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