Afghan people sit as they wait to leave the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule.
Wakil Kohsar | AFP | Getty Images
The Taliban’s swift return to power after two decades has left Afghanistan’s neighbors scrambling to figure out how to adjust to a shifting geopolitical outlook, experts told CNBC.
President Joe Biden in April ordered the Pentagon to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, effectively ending America’s longest war.
As U.S. military presence wound down, the Taliban made rapid battlefield advances despite being outnumbered by the Afghan military. In recent weeks, the group seized major cities and provincial capitals before entering capital Kabul on Sunday and taking control of the…
