What does the Taliban stand for?

Militants tell women to stay at home as radical overhaul gets underway

After the departure of US forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly captured key cities and yesterday claimed victory as President Ashraf Ghani fled abroad and the embattled government collapsed. Here, Professor Natasha Lindstaedt, from the Department of Government at the University of Essex, writes that a look at the country’s strategic geographic location and the politics of the region (including support for the Taliban) tells us that this outcome was inevitable.

Over the past 20 years, the US has poured trillions of dollars into Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, an effort that was clearly unsuccessful.

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