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Not just Afghanistan; you can find Taliban wherever people reject modernity

Afghanistan is not the only place at risk of takeover by extremists

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Taliban fighters patrol the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood | Photo: AP

John Feffer | FPIF
It’s as if a sudden natural disaster has just struck Afghanistan.

The scenes from the capital Kabul reflect the kind of panic that comes when a Category 5 hurricane makes landfall, when the waters rise and the levees are breached, when a forest fire jumps over a fuel break to spread out of control.

The Taliban victory this past weekend was not a complete surprise. The news had been full of warnings of their territorial advance, and pundits had worked hard to out-Cassandra one another with their pronouncements of impending doom.

And yet no one expected the sky to fall