Leaving Afghanistan

They could divulge sensitive U.S. military training and intelligence to Tehran, a U.S. lawmaker warns.

“People don’t trust us yet, but we’re working on it,” one Taliban commander said.

China’s calculated approach is driven by a deep mistrust that goes back decades.

Some are working on resistance. Others, consular services. And all of them must figure out how to keep their embassy’s lights on.

U.S. ambassador Daniel Smith is tapped to lead a review to understand the lessons of U.S. involvement.

Rebuilding U.S. standing requires an end to backing militants abroad.

The Haqqani network has long been the most lethal and vicious element of the Taliban.

The department hasn’t made the numbers public, but angry lawmakers are running out of patience.

The country’s former intelligence chief said the Taliban are torn between placating their foot soldiers and meeting Afghans’ and the international community’s expectations.

A rash of robbings, kidnappings, and even killings is aggravating Afghanistan’s dire situation.

International assistance isn’t the political lever many hope it will be.

Zalmay Khalilzad achieved what he was asked to do: Get the United States out of Afghanistan.

Here are three steps the Biden administration can take today.

Mansoor Ahmad Khan tells FP that Afghanistan is more stable now, and he denies any Pakistani support for the militant group.

Without urgent assistance, nearly the entire country could sink into poverty, the United Nations Development Program warns.

Supporting anti-Taliban fighters will spark a return to civil war, antagonize Pakistan, and draw the United States back into a conflict it sought to put behind it.

Even if the Taliban wanted to serve as a safe haven, there’s no reason to think terrorists would want to take up the offer.

The Afghan army’s collapse shows American forces are using the wrong approach.

A month after the U.S. withdrawal, Afghans who worked for the U.S. war effort are in hiding. Few see a way out.

Lawmakers raked Gen. Milley, Gen. McKenzie, and Defense Secretary Austin over the coals for the chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan.

The jihadi group’s continued rise has left the United States with only bad options.

Fighters, politicians, and generals will try to ape the Taliban’s playbook while the extremists sleepwalk into civil war.

Jens Stoltenberg weighs in on AUKUS, Zapad, and the fate of Afghanistan after 20 years of bitter toil.

The unspoken pact between Washington and anti-Islamic State jihadi groups is a short-sighted move that will reward extremists.

Don’t expect the Taliban to compromise their terrorist allies.

This week’s U.N. General Assembly provides an opportunity to assist the minorities, activists, women, and girls still in Afghanistan.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission could help avert civil war.

They share economic and geopolitical interests in Afghanistan, but counterterrorism could be a wrench.

Social scientists helped win World War II by judging enemy morale. But in Afghanistan, the U.S. kept getting it wrong.

Stefano Pontecorvo spent his childhood in Kabul. Sixty years later, he coordinated the evacuation of 124,000 people before saying goodbye to the city himself.

America’s man in Afghanistan reflects on Trump’s ill-fated peace deal, the pullout, and how everything went wrong.

Republican lawmakers grilled Biden’s top diplomat over the end to the United States’ Afghan war.

It’s unclear whether Washington can ever cure its addiction to enabling its allies’ corruption.

Experience in cooperating in Central Asia offers a fruitful model.

Afghanistan’s new rulers still have strong ties to the terrorist group that attacked the United States on 9/11.

The Taliban’s takeover in Kabul has all the makings of a Pyrrhic victory.

A few weeks after militants took over Kabul and the country, Afghanistan has gone back to a past it didn’t miss.

With a growing digital presence, the extremist group seeks to destabilize South and Central Asia.

A government of mullahs and terrorists snuffs out freedoms despite talk of inclusion and human rights.

The United States should have ignored sunk costs in Afghanistan and maintained a light military footprint.

Making concessions now will only encourage terrorism.

The lone superpower inadvertently taught the rest of the world how to fight it—and win.

Chants of “Freedom” and “Death to Taliban” rang out in Kabul and other Afghan cities.

As many banks are forced to close, an informal network of money exchangers provides an indispensable service.

The Islamic State-Khorasan has come to represent a greater threat to the persecuted minority.

A month ago, the United Nations was pulling its staff out of Afghanistan. Now, it’s headed back in to avert a major humanitarian crisis.

The agency has a long history of extracting people from danger zones.

Engaging with a Taliban government will be painful. Washington will have to do it anyway.

But doubts remain whether he can cut his own path in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Pakistan urges Washington to pump the breaks on sanctioning the Taliban.

When a scam falls apart, it collapses fast.

Many former officials expect U.S. intelligence to dry up.

After 20 years of building up Afghanistan, can the United States really cut the country off now?

The United States can no longer claim to be the leader of the free world if it abandons strategic allies and vulnerable civilians.

There’s little expectation the Taliban will make it easy to leave.

The failure of the Afghan army is a reminder that Pentagon-led security cooperation programs are more expensive and less effective than those led by spies.

The United States has leverage over the new Afghan government. Here’s how to use it.

The risk of a terrorist resurgence comes primarily from the Taliban’s Islamic State rivals.

More than a hundred American citizens remain in the Taliban-controlled country.

The new Afghan government will likely include ethnicities other than the Taliban’s own. But women are probably out of luck.

The leader of the Afghan anti-Taliban resistance vows to battle in the encircled Panjshir Valley to keep alive his father’s dream.

Five basic strategies from investment analysis apply to war and diplomacy too.

Afghanistan shows that the American left is in danger of losing the moral plot.

Zaki Anwari represented what a free Afghanistan could achieve. His gruesome death is a vivid reminder of the human toll of U.S. abandonment.

Leaving Afghanistan will not stop terrorism or leave the threats the United States faces behind.

A faction of the new Afghan government is extraordinarily close to al Qaeda and other terror groups—including the Islamic State.

Withdrawal was always bound to be chaotic, but wishful thinking, poor planning, and glacial bureaucracies have made a difficult situation worse.

A U.S. veteran of Afghan heritage reflects on a complicated relationship between two far-apart nations.

The geostrategic and economic benefits of closer relations are too great for Beijing to ignore.

The country is too chaotic for Beijing to exploit economically.

As the chances of evacuation dwindle, the West owes Afghans a chance at surviving in their own country.

The anger is real—but anguished humanitarianism is just part of it.

The terror group behind the Kabul attacks has close ties to the Haqqani network.

After the deadly Kabul attack, the CIA pins its hopes on an unconventional counterterrorism strategy.

Why the tech giant is on the wrong side of history yet again.

U.S. officials had repeatedly warned of threats from the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan this week.

Administration remains focused on evacuation efforts for now.

Washington needs to give a visible sign of Indo-Pacific commitment.

The Taliban are intent on driving out the very people they need to make the country governable.

If the United States fails to understand its mistakes, it will continue to repeat them.

Early indications suggest Afghanistan will be led by a 12-man council of criminals, terrorists, and the more pliant members of the former government.

The fall of Kabul is a crisis of competence, not credibility, for U.S. power in Asia.

Retired British Gen. Richard Barrons warns that the United Kingdom and European Union can no longer simply rely on the United States for their security.

What an ancient citadel can teach us about Afghanistan’s past—and its potential future.

The withdrawal has been tragic—but it hasn’t been a strategic disaster.

The group faces a more powerful Taliban than ever, but public discontent could fuel the resistance.

The U.S. president’s refusal to acknowledge error has dismayed supporters and European allies.

Veterans mobilize online to help Afghans fleeing the Taliban.

For China and Russia, the country is a liability, not an asset.

A series of snags have kept planes stuck on Kabul’s tarmac.

The main lesson from the failed intervention in Afghanistan is about the dangers of self-delusion. Will anyone learn it?

The factors that led to the country’s collapse find many parallels in Latin America.

From Kabul to Kolkata, South Asian heirs of partition can draw inspiration from their history to chart a sustainable future.

Along one part of the Turkish border, hundreds of new Afghan migrants show up every day.

The parallels are easy to list.

Why the special immigration system is broken.

With the withdrawal completed, Washington’s strategic shift can commence.

Islamabad cheered the fall of Kabul, but the new Afghan regime will embolden domestic terrorist groups that could threaten the Pakistani state.

Each has bipartisan support and could be taken in short order.

Thousands of Americans and Afghans are still stranded in what lawmakers are calling a fiasco.

The gap between the group’s international leadership and its rank-and-file fighters has never been wider.

Envoy says Washington and Islamabad now have a common interest in stopping the Taliban from exporting violence.

Tehran’s Shiite regime has strategic, economic, ideological, and ecological reasons for backing Sunni extremists.

The fall of Kabul accelerates a fundamental realignment that was already underway.

Russia signals an openness to working with the Taliban.

The fall of Afghanistan reveals hard truths about U.S. human rights talks.

The Taliban pledge an orderly transition, but many residents are bracing for retribution.

Beijing wants stability. That could serve some U.S. ends.

At minimum, Biden owed our allies in Afghanistan a plan.

For two decades, contractors provided key maintenance and military support.

American diplomats reckon with Afghanistan’s collapse.

Washington ignored Islamabad funding and supplying the Taliban. Now Afghans are paying the price.

Tightly bound kinship networks aren’t vestiges of the past. They’re a modern—and effective—form of political organization.

The president is taking flak from all sides, but the timing of the Taliban takeover could minimize the political damage.

In a new chapter for Afghanistan, women are particularly vulnerable.

The United States evacuates its embassy while diplomats and aid officials brace for a new humanitarian catastrophe.

The Wakhan Corridor is a fiercely contested imperial hangover.

More desperate migrants will head West in coming years—and the West’s migration policies must change in response.

The Taliban’s rapid advance leaves only Kabul left to take, and Western powers don’t want to be there when it happens.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan should continue. But a new military engagement should begin.

Ten provincial capitals have fallen in a week, and Kabul is teetering.

Six more Afghan provinces fell over the weekend, and Kabul fears the “country will fall apart.”

Deborah Lyons cites Syria and Sarajevo in her warnings of what could come as the Taliban turn their guns toward Afghanistan’s cities.

The United States is banking on Islamabad to broker successful peace talks with the Taliban. That’s not likely to happen.

Killings by militiamen in Herat underscore the risks of relying on armed civilians to fight off the Taliban.

The last 20 years saw a renaissance in the Afghan media landscape. Now, it’s crumbling.

Ismail Khan, fabled warlord and former governor, is back again on the front lines to fend off the Taliban advance.

Key cities including Herat and Kandahar could be the next to fall as Afghanistan’s nightmare continues.

With ethnic warlords reviving their militias, the Afghan war—even without the U.S. military—is more balanced than it seems.

Shukria Barakzai, a prominent women’s rights advocate and former politician, shares her thoughts on the U.S. withdrawal and Afghanistan’s uncertain future.

The United States’ longtime partners in northern Iraq are watching Afghanistan go to pieces after the U.S. pullout with “wishful thinking.”

As Blinken heads to New Delhi, he could find some surprising common ground on Afghanistan.

Intelligence assets who worked for the CIA now face deadly reprisals.

In some Afghan towns, women are fleeing ahead of insurgent takeovers.

Bamiyan, home to the Taliban-wrecked Buddhas, might be the start of Afghanistan’s pushback against the insurgents.

Beijing has its eyes set on using Afghanistan as a strategic corridor once U.S. troops are out of the way.

Since the war began, America has had one lens for Central Asia. What happens now?

The European allies that fought alongside the United States will face the fallout as thousands of refugees flee the Taliban, giving fodder to far-right parties.

After decades of supporting the Afghan government, New Delhi is planning for its potential fall.

Afghanistan’s foreign minister on what may await his country after the U.S. withdrawal.

The president said this withdrawal will be nothing like what happened in 1975, but there are some striking parallels.

How to make sense of Washington’s longest war ever.

As U.S. focus moves elsewhere, regional powers are closely watching Afghanistan’s fate.

Afghanistan will get an injection of contractor support and planes for its beleaguered Air Force.

With the Taliban insurgency expanding, the U.S. withdrawal could provoke a major humanitarian crisis.

The United States vowed to destroy the Taliban. Today, they are stronger than ever. But will that last?

As Afghan forces melt away, local armed groups are left to hold the line against the Taliban.

The shift comes as the White House seeks to downgrade the threat of global terrorism after 20 years of “forever wars.”

Biden to boost aid to Kabul as the militants capture more territory.

Afghan interpreters who worked with the U.S. military clamor for U.S. visas to escape Taliban retribution.

To stop the Taliban’s advance and his government’s collapse, the Afghan leader must check his hubris at the White House door.

With the situation in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorating, expect the mood to be grim when Ghani and Abdullah meet Biden.

Is a new “great game” emerging?

No, a complete withdrawal will not ease the U.S. pivot to China.

The government’s radio silence is handing a propaganda victory to the insurgents.

Ankara is well positioned to play key roles after the U.S. withdrawal.

Future U.S. partners will have to “think twice” about helping the Pentagon if Biden isn’t able to grant visas to Afghan interpreters, lawmakers said.

Ambitious post-withdrawal hopes can’t be achieved without bases nearby.

Women’s representation is critical to lasting peace, but they are losing ground at the negotiating table.

The one advantage the Afghan army had on the Taliban looks set to slip away with the hasty U.S. withdrawal.

Biden’s pledge to maintain U.S. capacity in Afghanistan without boots on the ground appears easier said than done.

The militant group’s spokesman vows to “continue our war” until Afghanistan has an Islamic government.

The government dithered and denied the pandemic’s severity. Now, a health disaster looms.

Afghan interpreters were promised U.S. visas. Now, red tape may cost them their lives.

Washington hopes to reduce spiraling Taliban violence, but it is losing its most potent leverage: troop presence.

A new U.S. intelligence assessment suggests women’s rights in Afghanistan face threats even without a Taliban takeover.

Four decades of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan have left South Asia transformed—and on the cusp of a realignment.

To reach a gender-conscious peace deal with the Taliban, Afghan negotiators need more time—and U.S. support.

France’s withdrawal shows sometimes the costs of maintaining the status quo are higher than the costs of a drastic policy change.

Penalties for broken contracts, fees for shipping equipment, and salaries for the Afghan military are just a few of the costs that will hit the United States as it leaves.

Five decades ago, before the great powers intervened, Afghanistan was on a much better path than today. But the longed-for “decade of democracy” was soon shattered.

Roya Rahmani says the Taliban have no justification for continuing their war after the departure of international troops.

The Pentagon is going to need more firepower to pull out U.S. troops.

With the United States departing, New Delhi is seeking new ways to project influence.

In Logar province, just outside of Kabul, fear of a Taliban takeover rises.

Here’s how the Biden administration can prevent chaos in Afghanistan, even after it withdraws.

A full withdrawal from Afghanistan is a costly blunder and failure of leadership.

The United States’ withdrawal may be a balm domestically. It’s anything but for those that lived through the horror.

After 9/11, Biden embraced the idea that U.S. troops should leave the country better than how they found it. Now, as president, he’s withdrawing them regardless.

But will he really end the United States’ other open-ended conflicts?

After making the right call on withdrawal, the U.S. president better get ready for second-guessing.