this is bbc news, i m lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: crisis in afghanistan taliban militants capture the country s second largest city, and fears are mounting that the capital kabul may be under threat. president biden is still insisting that pulling us forces out of the country was the right decision, but is facing growing criticism. when the decision was announced months ago, i said i would fear we would come to regret this decision and we already are. this again is a nightmare. in the uk, a vigil has been held to remember the victims of thursday s mass shooting
a religious minority and an ethnic group that. that bore the brunt of the taliban atrocities during their reign in the late 1990s, we will be the first and we will be the most vulnerable people in afghanistan that the taliban will come to visit. well, what about president biden s argument that it has been two decades, firstly, and also that the americans have been involved in training afghan security forces, and it is now down to the afghan security forces to maintain security in the country? well, mr biden can make any argument that he wants, but even a layman would know that at this point they cannot leave the country to the wolves, so to speak.
one of my brothers was also killed in the fighting one year ago. if my mother finds out what has happened to me, she will have a stroke, he says. more than 1000 have been killed in the past month in a country engulfed by suffering. in 2001, it was a us led military coalition that ousted the taliban from power for providing refuge to al-qaeda. with the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching, there are fears that the taliban may soon be back in charge, thus completing a vicious historical circle. general david petraeus served as commander of us and nato forces in afghanistan. he told the bbc there is no good outcome now, unless foreign troops go back into afghanistan. i would say that we should literally reverse the decision. i think when the decision was announced months ago, i said
in the uk, a vigil has been held to remember the victims of thursday s mass shooting the country s worst since 2010. police have now named the victims. and much of southern europe continues to bake after one of the hottest summers ever recorded. the rapid advance of the taliban in afghanistan is accelerating. the militants now control a third of the country s regional capitals, including afghanistan s second largest city, kandahar. american officials say the taliban is trying to isolate the capital, kabul. and they ve acknowledged that the insurgents may be back in power much sooner than expected. meanwhile the united nations has warned a humanitarian catastrophe may be unfolding. our correspondent, yogita limaye reports from kabul. gunfire.
can do is work with all our partners, in the region and around the world, who share an interest with us in preventing afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terror. these carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations. that was, of course, the reason why they went there in the first place soon after the attacks on the us on 9/11. but the efforts and sacrifices over the past two decades to create a more stable country now seem to have been in vain. and there s anger that britain s following america s decision to leave afghanistan. this is really bad for britain looking weak, making yourself look like you are untrustworthy weakens britons abroad, makes us all more vulnerable and leaves us exposed. afghanistan s location is of strategic importance. to the north, there are the former soviet states such as turkmenistan,