Ever since United States President Joe Biden announced that all US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by next month, ending his nation's longest-running deployment, it has been obvious that it would only be a matter of time before the fundamentalist Taleban outfit would retake power. Even so, the swiftness of its advance has startled the world. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the US is swiftly evacuating its remaining personnel, Germany is sending special planes to move people to Uzbekistan from where they can board chartered flights home and the British Parliament has been summoned back from its summer recess to discuss the situation.

Mr Ghani's government, like its security forces, vanished from view. That and the pullout of foreign forces have left citizens fearful, confused and feeling betrayed and abandoned. The Taleban now holds the presidential palace. The self-styled Islamic emirate claims it wants to avoid bloodshed and said that foreigners will not be harmed. A spokesman said the lives and property of Kabul residents are safe. As has happened often in the history of this landlocked nation that bridges South and Central Asia, the wheel has turned full circle. It has been two decades since a US-led coalition rolled into Afghanistan in retaliation for the Sept 11 attacks on the US that were planned from Afghan soil. But the Taleban's waiting game, inept government, corruption, the failure to reform economically and a slow war of attrition have been the country's undoing.