Kabul

The top U.S. military officer called the 20-year war in Afghanistan a "strategic failure" and acknowledged to Congress that he had favored keeping several thousand troops in the country to prevent a collapse of the U.S.-supported Kabul government and a rapid takeover by the Taliban.

A prominent leader of the Taliban has said the group will reintroduce punishments such as amputations and executions for criminals, though perhaps not publicly.

One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.

The international community should continue to engage with Afghanistan, Turkey's foreign minister said on Sept. 22. 

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his counterparts exchanged opinions on irregular migration and the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as part of a virtual G20 foreign ministers meeting hosted by the Italian chair of the intergovernmental forum.

Ahead of a one-on-one meeting on Sept. 21 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. and Turkey's top diplomats said they would continue to work on Afghanistan.

The European Union will focus on humanitarian aid as it figures out how to deal with the Taliban, aiming on an informal arrangement with Afghanistan's new rulers to ensure safe aid corridors, four diplomats and two officials said.

Kabul International Airport has officially announced that it is open for domestic and international flights, Khaama Press reported, citing a source from the Civil Aviation Authority.

As a result of the terrorist act of August 26, the runway was severely damaged.

Technical experts from Qatar and Turkey helped resume operations at the international airport.

That involved a catastrophic intelligence failure for the Biden administration, writes "Blic".
A detailed timeline released by the Pentagon on Friday, compared to previous reports of humanitarian worker Zemari Ahmadi spending a day in Kabul on August 29, reveals misconceptions and huge mistakes that led to the disaster.

The Pentagon retreated from its defense of a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month, announcing on Sept. 17 that a review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not an Islamic State extremist as first believed.

"The strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.

Viola player Bahar was practising at her music college in the Afghan capital, when news broke that the Taliban had reached the city.