Sweeping Taliban conquests in Afghanistan this week are challenging the Biden administration’s hopes that a desire for international respect — and for international aid and cash — will moderate the fundamentalist militia’s worst behaviors when the U.S. ends its war there.
Taliban commanders seized three more provincial capitals in Afghanistan and an army headquarters, officials said Wednesday, in a blitz that leaves up to two-thirds of the nation in their control as the U.S. finishes its withdrawal after two decades of war. The day before, President Joe Biden called on Afghans to “fight for themselves, fight for their nation.”
