"Islam and the Islamic Emirate do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed," a senior Taliban official reportedly said.
The Taliban's ideology has distant links to India. Scholars say Afghanistan's new leaders might listen to clerics in the birthplace of Deobandi Islam, though the clerics deny ties with the Taliban.
Travelers have spent seven days waiting to depart from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. At least 19 U.S. citizens and two green card holders are said to be among the group of about 600.
Ajmal Achekzai remembers the war in Afghanistan, which brought him back to his birthplace of Kabul. Now that the war is over, he says, "I feel like I failed the Afghan people."
Ali Nazary, the National Resistance Front's head of foreign relations, denies that the last holdout against the Taliban has fallen, calling such reports part of the "Taliban propaganda machine."
Since evacuating its Kabul embassy, the U.S. has set up shop in Doha to continue diplomatic work on Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he'll thank them in Doha next week.
Here's what it's like at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where many of the tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated from Kabul over the past few weeks are awaiting travel to the United States.
As when the Taliban last took power, the Panjshir Valley is the hub of resistance — and is led by a man named Massoud. This Massoud has no combat experience but is amassing allies and vows to fight.
The San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento, Calif., says officials believe some of the district's students have been able to leave since the U.S. evacuation ended Tuesday.
Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Mitt Romney issued a new call for Biden officials to protect Afghan journalists. Last month, the pair requested safe evacuation for those who wanted to leave.
Some Afghans are welcoming their new rulers, while many others remember the excesses of the harsh ideology the Taliban enforced when they last seized power in the 1990s.
The final evacuation flight brought to a close the longest war in U.S. history. The withdrawal leaves the future of Afghanistan in disarray and uncertainty under renewed Taliban rule.
Presidents' reactions have consistently combined outrage with promises of revenge. The language is remarkably similar. But there has been far less consistency in the delivery of actual retaliation.
