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Juan Carlos

An Afghan soldier patrols a mountainous area near Kandahar in the days before the Taliban took control.

Taliban supporters gather outside Kandahar’s airport, which is adjacent to a sprawling military base. The airport once had the distinction of having the busiest single-runway airport in the world as a result of U.S. military operations in the region.

Taliban fighters ride through the streets of Kandahar, a city of particular significance to the militants. Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, was born near the city and ruled Afghanistan from Kandahar when his forces controlled the country.

A U.S. soldier guarding an entrance at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul yells to two women in front of him to sit down as the soldiers try to control the crowds of thousands desperately trying to enter the airport to be evacuated.

In early August, Afghan troops still held a military post on a hill in the Arghandab District in Kandahar Province. The troops failed to stop the Taliban from reclaiming the country’s second-largest city and their former capital.

A Taliban fighter in Kabul keeps watch from the top of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The armoured vehicle was one of many seized by the Taliban when military bases were abandoned by the Afghan armed forces. On August 15, the Taliban streamed into the capital city, bringing a startlingly swift end to the Afghan government and two decades of American military presence.