At 8:30 one August morning two years ago, I was at home in the Pul-e Surkh area of Kabul when my sister called. She worked for Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan, and she’d been told to stay home that day. She wanted to warn me about what she’d heard: the Taliban, who had been taking back power in the provinces for months as US troops were beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan, were coming for Kabul.
I didn’t want to sound scared, so I told her not to worry. Based on what I’d learned while covering the peace negotiations between the US, the Afghan government, and the Taliban the previous year, the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul was expected to take at least six months. “We have time,” I said to my sister. I even tried to joke with her. She told me to be serious.
