![Taliban Fighters in the Presidential Palace in Kabul](Taliban Fighters.jpeg)
The Taliban took Kabul at lightening speed
President Ghani thought he had time to defeat the Taliban
The calm before the storm, is the feeling in Kabul
The Taliban have swept into the Afghan capital Kabul, after defeating President Ghani's armed forces across the country.
The lightening speed to reach Kabul has taken Western leaders and military leaders by complete surprise and to the dismay of the enemy, The Taliban of gaining control and power in such a small space of time.
The Taliban fighters themselves looked stunned as they sat in the Presidential office, where only hours before President Ghani was making a desperate plea to his fellow countrymen and women of the fight against the Taliban who were only forty miles away.
The Afghan President thought like most people that the fighting was far enough to not be an immediate threat and frantic peace talks in Doha, Qatar was the way of saving face and getting much time as possible to come up with a military offensive against the Taliban.
The thought of getting a peace deal was highly unlikely and unwillingly from the Afghan President, as Afghan society is so tribal that sworn enemies remain until the end-of-days.
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The significates of capturing the capital of a country are not only capturing the seat of power and rule over the country, but to tell the rest of the population and the world that our system of governance is now here to stay.
The press conference by the Taliban was well orchestrated and was really meant for a western audience of creating the calm before the storm.
![Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid](Taliban Spokesman.jpeg)
Even the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had some trouble with the question of how 'women' are going to fit into an ultra-religious conservative model of governance.
The answer everyone, including more importantly women themselves, is that Afghanistan will be under sharia law and that women as well as everyone else will have to obey and submit the way women are supposed to be treated in the Qur'an.
That is how the Taliban will eventually rule not only in the capital city Kabul, but even more harshly in the countryside, without the full global glare.
More hard-line Taliban fighters have entered Kabul and people, especially those that had worked with American, British, European, and other coalition partners are now being hunted down or on a wanted list of enemies to the Taliban.
![Afghans desperate to leave Kabul Airport and flee the Taliban](Kabul Airport [One].jpg)
With the Kabul International Airport under siege from the many thousands of Afghans who have descended to try and escape from being kidnapped by the Taliban and tortured and raped before being executed.
In a surprise twist, and to see a small glimmer of change in the Taliban, there is some level of co-operation between the American, British, European and coalition forces at the airport to control and rescue those that have full or dual citizenship of other countries, or those that are endangered of being persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Taliban from Kabul.
Kabul may have fallen to the Taliban, but Afghan's have had a taste of freedom and what it is like to live in a free society, which has sparked protests from people who reject the Taliban rule and what they represent, and women who want their freedoms and rights upheld and protected.
The war may be over, but the peace may be far from over.