A year ago today, on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capping days of lightning advances as the US and other allies ended their military presence in the country. The Islamic fundamentalist group, which led the country in the 1990s before it was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2001, seized power from the Western-backed government.
It was, as John Simpson wrote for the New Statesman recently, “the most shameful capitulation of its kind in my lifetime”. Afghans stormed the runway at Hamid Karzai International airport, desperate to escape their new rulers. People clung on to the sides of American transport aircraft, and dropped to their deaths after the planes took off. Around 170 died after an Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) suicide bomber detonated his vest among the crowd gathered at the airport.
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