A day after the Taliban’s gun-toting militants entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani’s government collapsed, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan could not hide his glee. He was launching a government education programme in Islamabad on August 16 and ended up referring to the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan as people breaking “shackles of slavery”.
For decades the Taliban's leadership structure has been in the shadows: Even before the U.S. invasion in 2001, little was known about how the group operates beyond the names of a few top leaders.
Aryana Sayeed, a singer and judge on the Afghan version of The Voice, was one of those fortunate to escape the country on a US cargo jet from Kabul on Wednesday.