Taliban marks two years since return to power in Afghanistan

Hundreds of Taliban supporters, from elderly men to young boys, gathered near the abandoned US embassy building, one of the many that now stands empty – the Taliban government is still not formally recognised by any other country. US-made military vehicles, claimed by the new Taliban rulers when they were left behind by international forces after a weeks-long chaotic withdrawal, rolled past the ajar gates of the fortified embassy walls. In the city of Herat in the west, a crowd of Taliban supporters chanted: “Death to the Europeans, death to the Westerners, long live the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, death to the Americans.”