We're now bringing this page to a close.

The Taliban have marked the first anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan by parading in the streets of Kabul and declaring a national holiday.

But the UN has warned that millions face malnutrition and urged the world not to forget the plight of the country's women and girls.

We'd like to thank our correspondents who have answered dozens of questions from our readers on issues ranging from girls’ education, to armed resistance to the Taliban, to the recent killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. And thanks too to our readers for all your thoughtful and interesting questions.

The BBC has much more coverage from Afghanistan, including:

• Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet's reflection on what the Taliban’s takeover has meant for ordinary Afghans
• This powerful video report by Yogita Limaye on the newborns fighting for survival in Badakhshan's maternity wards
• Afghanistan correspondent Secunder Kermani's interview with a Taliban sniper who now works in an office – but misses the fight.

And we will of course continue to cover developments in Afghanistan on our news pages.

We're wrapping up our live coverage shortly, thank you for joining us as we have marked one year since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

Our coverage today has been brought to you by Jeremy Gahagan, Chris Giles, Dulcie Lee, Heather Sharp, Marita Maloney, Emily McGarvey, Aoife Walsh, Laura Gozzi, Catherine Evans and Jasmine Taylor-Coleman.

Syed Anwar
BBC Afghan Service

Image source, Reuters

I was in the BBC bureau earlier than usual that morning, and in some ways it felt like a normal news day - assigning stories, chatting with colleagues.

But by mid-morning, the atmosphere began to change as it became clear the government was indeed about to fall.

I received a call from my son, who worked in the finance ministry, and he told me his colleagues were fleeing the office - there were rumours the Taliban had reached the gates of Kabul.

When I left the BBC building a short time later - a place I had worked for so many years - I had a sense I might never return.

By the time I got home, dozens of scenarios were playing through my mind about how my family’s life might be about to change.

Two days later, at midnight, we were offered places on an evacuation flight and asked to provide a list of dependents under 18 who could join us.

The deadline was tight but the decision felt enormous - leave our homeland and be forced into exile, or stay, and not know what might happen.

When I used to travel abroad, it was always a happy moment, but this time, everyone was in pieces. The family elders were the most upset, saying it could be our last meeting. But saying goodbye was the only option.

Reaching the airport was tremendously difficult, and getting through the desperate crowds of thousands felt extremely dangerous.

My elder son could not join us, being over 18, which has not been easy. But I am so glad my younger daughters have been able to continue their education in the UK.

Starting from scratch in a new society and country is not easy, but knowing that they have a better future gives us hope.

George Wright
BBC News

Zahra Fayazi managed to escape Kabul as the city was falling to the Taliban.

An interpreter for the UK government and a coach of the national women’s volleyball team, Fayazi was in more danger than most.

Last time I spoke with Fayazi she was living in a hotel in London, but she now has her own house in Rugby in England.

There are nearly 10,000 Afghans still in hotels across the UK.

Fayazi recalls watching her homeland disappear from view from the plane a year ago.

“I was sure that I would miss it a lot but it was a situation that everyone had to cope with,” she says.

Fayazi says she has settled into life in Rugby and soon started playing volleyball again with a local team.

“I feel happy to be able to play again in a peaceful area with no fear, restrictions or limitations,” she says.

It’s in stark contrast to the lives of the majority of Afghan female volleyball players who are still in Afghanistan.

“For one year they have not been allowed to do any sport,” she says.

“Our players told me that some gymnasiums where they used to play were investigated by the Taliban, asking for the girls’ contact numbers, their addresses.”

Looking to the future, Fayazi says she wants to “serve my new community” in the UK, adding that returning to her homeland any time soon seems “impossible”.

“But I hope Afghanistan sees peace again and Afghan women have freedom and rights to education, sports and work,” she says.

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

Naren Patel says it’s good to see people opening their hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees but asks: was the same offered to refugees from Afghanistan?

No scheme similar to the Homes for Ukraine programme - where people in the UK could welcome Ukrainian refugees into their own homes - was set up in the UK for Afghans.

The UK government has been heavily criticised for the slow speed and clumsiness with which it has attempted to process the thousands of deserving Afghan applicants for asylum.

Around 15,000 were evacuated in August 2021 under Operation Pitting (compared to over 113,000 by the US) and the UK government has budgeted for 20,000 Afghan refugees to come to Britain over five years.

Many though, are taking matters into their own hands with over 1,000 arriving illegally in boats across the Channel in the first quarter of 2022, the highest proportion of any nationality.

You can read more about the schemes for Ukrainians here and for Afghans here.

Is the Hazara minority being targeted?published at 19:08 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

19:08 BST 15 August 2022

Secunder Kermani
Reporting from Kandahar

The Hazara community is Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group. Alongside other adherents of Shia Islam, they have faced persecution from the Taliban.

Matthew Whitton in Japan says he is concerned about the Hazaras' current status and condition. Is the Taliban undertaking a more 'circumspect' route this time to again inflict torment and murder upon the Hazaras?

Afghanistan’s Hazara ethnic minority follows the Shia sect of Islam. Hazaras have long been discriminated against in Afghanistan both on the basis of their ethnicity and their religion.

The Taliban, which is dominated by the Pashtun ethnicity, has been accused of forcibly expelling some Hazara communities from villages in a number of provinces – in favour of local communities who have been pro-Taliban.

Hazaras have generally also been much more in favour of girls' education and women working outside the home, so they’ve been affected by new Taliban rules in those fields too. However, the violence the Hazaras are currently facing predominantly comes from the Islamic State (IS) group, which has for years targeted the community in deadly suicide bombings.

The Taliban are fighting against IS, though like the previous Afghan government they at times face criticism for failing to prevent attacks.

Should the UK recognise the Taliban government?published at 19:04 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

19:04 BST 15 August 2022

Frank Gardner
Security Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Barbara Adolph, in London, asks: Should the UK recognise the Taliban government and try to work with the more moderate elements within it? Would this make things worse or better for Afghan women?

You correctly point out, Barbara, that the Taliban is not monolithic, ie there are both moderate and hardline elements within its ranks.

A lot of people were hoping that 'Taliban 2.0', this second period of Taliban rule, would be a lot less harsh and a lot more pragmatic than the first one from 1996-2001.

The Taliban negotiators who spent months living in Qatar during the peace talks with the US before the fall of Kabul had a chance to see a totally different world to the rugged land of the insurgency they were fighting in back home.

They took their wives shopping in air-conditioned malls and enjoyed a high standard of living. It was hoped they would have a moderating influence on the rest of the Taliban.

But one year on, it's clear that hardline clerics are resisting letting girls return to secondary school or performing any sizeable role in public life, despite the pledges made last year by their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Quietly, behind the scenes, there are some contacts going on between the West and some Taliban officials, especially on counter-terrorism since the Taliban are now facing their own insurgency problem from the islamic State group.

George Wright
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

One year ago, I spoke to members of the Afghan women's cricket team who were in hiding from the Taliban.

"We are all hopeless," one of the team, Asel, told me from Kabul.

Asel isn't her real name. She was using a pseudonym then and wants to continue as she still has family in Afghanistan.

But life has improved a lot for Asel. She managed to escape to Pakistan in October and flew to Australia two weeks later, where the entire squad now lives.

"The border was very tough. We passed the Taliban checkpoints one by one, covering our faces so they couldn’t recognise us," she says.

While some of the team have found life in Australia easier than others, Asel is adapting well.

She has also been relishing the chance to freely play the sport she loves again. The team have been training together once a week and playing indoor matches due to it being winter.

"To play cricket here is a lot easier. It’s very easy for girls because back in our country you are not allowed to play," Asel says.

However, the Afghanistan Cricket Board has not allowed them to represent the country officially.

"Everyone wants a team under the name Afghanistan but that’s not possible under the current situation. We are trying to build our careers individually, if it’s possible for us.

"But I’m so good here. The people are very kind."

Could women study online?published at 18:52 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

18:52 BST 15 August 2022

Yogita Limaye
Reporting from Kabul

Adam Nemeth, in Hungary, says: I heard that women can't leave their home without a male relative and generally they can't go to work. But could they work and study remotely?

Some women and girls are pursuing online education.

But this is limited to a small number who can afford gadgets like mobile phones and tablets, and a steady internet connection.

The vast majority of Afghans don't fall into this category.

The UN has said there could be near universal poverty in Afghanistan by next year because of the economic crisis triggered by the stopping of foreign funds which were being given to the Afghan government.

So spending money on online education is a luxury that is simply out of reach for most people.

Hameed Shuja
BBC Afghan Service

The Taliban constantly play down the existence of any armed opposition to them but over the past year there have been multiple independent reports of clashes in parts of central and northern Afghanistan between them and groups opposed to their rule.

The current resistance against the Taliban operate in small pockets. The “National Resistance Front” (NRF) and the “Afghanistan Freedom Front" have accepted responsibility for many recent attacks targeting Taliban forces.

Ahmad Massoud, son of the late guerilla commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose forces resisted the Soviets in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s, leads the NRF.

He is said to be based in Tajikistan but recently told the BBC he has around 3,000 armed fighters inside Afghanistan. That claim is difficult to verify and the Taliban brush off questions about their existence.

Is Afghanistan again a base for international terrorism?published at 18:33 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

18:33 BST 15 August 2022

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

Image source, EPA

Over the past few hours, our correspondents have been answering your questions about the situation in Afghanistan. We asked Frank whether the return of the Taliban has meant international terrorist groups are able to re-establish themselves in the country.No, and yes, is the awkward answer.

Part of the Doha Agreement negotiated in February 2020 between the US and the Taliban was that if US forces withdrew from the country then the Taliban would not allow their old allies al-Qaida to re-establish their presence in the country.

This was, of course, the whole reason why the US and its allies went into Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 - to close down al-Qaida’s bases and overthrow the Taliban government that had given them sanctuary.

This week the White House has released a partly redacted US intelligence assessment that concludes that al-Qaida has not so far reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan and less than a dozen of its leaders are hiding there. This is despite the CIA locating the fugitive al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, hiding out in a safe house in a part of Kabul close to Taliban leaders, and killing him with a drone strike in early August.

Ironically, after 20 years of being the insurgents, it is now the Taliban government that faces its own insurgency from its rival, the Islamic State group.

Members of this ultra hardline and pathologically violent group have carried out a number of terrorist attacks aimed at undermining Taliban rule.

This gives Western counter-terrorism officials an opportunity to make common cause with the Taliban to help them confront this threat.

Afghans have been in "survival mode" for the past year, the UN secretary general's deputy special representative for Afghanistan says.

Ramiz Alakbarov tells the BBC around 19 million Afghans are experiencing malnutrition and half of the country’s population is in constant need of support for nutritional or basic essential needs.

Alakbarov says women’s rights are “non-negotiable” and “essential to the resolution of the crisis in Afghanistan”.

He says: "Let’s face it, today the aid sector of Afghanistan could have benefited from much stronger support from the international community. It is not having the same level of support."

We've just had an update on the explosion which occurred earlier in Kabul.

One person is now known to have been killed and ten people were injured, according to Emergency, an international healthcare organisation operating in the area.

Explosives were reportedly planted in a wheelbarrow in front of a hotel in District 3, to the west of the city centre.

Security forces have started an investigation into the incident.

Secunder Kermani
Reporting from Kandahar

Image source, Getty Images

Nick Gliddon, 51, in Staffordshire in the UK asks what the Taliban say and think about the exodus of so many talented Afghans from the country.

The Taliban have been trying to encourage business figures, and even those linked to the previous government, to return. They see their takeover as a chance to rebuild Afghanistan.

Most educated Afghans you meet who are still in the country, however, are looking for a way out.

Visas are hard to come by, but the closure of most girls’ secondary schools, along with the economic crisis mean many families no longer see a future for themselves in Afghanistan.

Some are determined to stay and try to help improve the situation, but few are optimistic.

Image source, Reuters

Let's hear more voices from Afghanistan as people share their experiences of life under the Taliban with the BBC's Afghan service.

Farough from Mazar-i-Sharif says: "The Taliban brought poverty, fear, and threat to our country.

"Over the past year, we have become destitute. We lost our freedom of speech and education. It's the darkest part of our history so far... People are very disappointed and hopeless about their future. All hopes we had from the international community have now turned into disappointment."

Wali from Kabul says that Afghans have had "a terrible year. All I remember from the past couple of months are bad memories.

"I am a disabled person, and I used to receive money from the government, which has been stopped. I am now poor and begging in the streets. Afghanistan used to have a vibrant economy with ongoing businesses. They are all gone. We are left wounded by our neighbours and also by the international community."

"Before lots of people, especially farmers, got wounded and killed, lots of shopkeepers were shot," said Gul Mohammad, a tailor in the village of Padkhwab in Logar Province, south east of Kabul one year on from the Taliban’s takeover.

The BBC’s Secunder Kermani visited the village on the front line not long after the Taliban assumed power last year.

At the time, residents were eager to show him the signs of a war that until a few weeks ago had overshadowed their lives in the village.

Almost a year later, residents still expressed gratitude for the improvements to security. But sharp rises to the cost of everyday products and the lack of work have become common complaints.

"People can't afford flour, let alone meat or fruit," said Mohammad.

Other village residents say they are grateful for better security. Tile-maker Samiullah, for instance, said that "it's true there was more money back then [before the Taliban took over], but we faced a lot of oppression," referring to the presence of Afghan government troops in the village who he accuses of harassing people.

Many others, however, feel the country they helped build is disappearing in front of their eyes, and they're deeply concerned about what it's being replaced with.

Read more here.

Why was al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, living in Kabul?published at 17:34 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

17:34 BST 15 August 2022

Frank Gardner
Security Correspondent

We asked Frank about the recent killing of the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, by a US drone. Didn’t the Taliban pledge not to give safe haven to terrorists? Why, then, would al-Zawahiri be living in the heart of the capital?

It’s true that the Taliban gave a solemn pledge not to provide a safe haven for international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State group.

The fact that the AQ leader was found to be living in some comfort in an upmarket villa in Kabul, close to Taliban leaders, would certainly imply the Taliban broke that pledge.

The Taliban is divided when it comes to al-Qaeda. Some of its more outward-looking officials, especially those who took part in peace talks with the US in Doha in 2020, want a complete break with AQ.

But others from the so-called Haqqani network have close historical and even marital ties with AQ and apparently have no intention of severing their ties. Hence the US seems to have taken matters into its own hands and killed the AQ leader when it saw an opportunity.

The White House has just released highlights of an intelligence assessment which concludes that although a small number of AQ leaders remain in Afghanistan, the group has not been able to rebuild its presence and lacks the ability to carry out international attacks.

Image source, Reuters

Soul-searching in the US over its 20-year missionpublished at 17:26 British Summer Time 15 August 2022

17:26 BST 15 August 2022

Barbara Plett Usher
US State Department Correspondent

Image source, Omar Haidari via Reuters

In the United States the anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Kabul is mired in competing political narratives.

A Republican-led congressional report criticises what it says was a lack of planning for the military withdrawal.

It also purports to show how the administration overrode the advice of US commanders and disregarded the Taliban’s violations of the 2020 pull-out deal.

It says President Joe Biden’s decision to remove all US troops has endangered the US.

The White House has hit back with a detailed takedown of each point.

It places much of the blame on the “flawed” deal that former president Donald Trump struck with the Taliban. And it trumpets the successful strike against al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul last month as evidence the US can fight terrorists without boots on the ground.

But for those Americans who fought and worked in Afghanistan this is not an academic debate.

There is a heavy sense of personal failure: failure to rescue American partners during the chaotic evacuation, and to deliver on promises of building lasting, democratic and inclusive institutions.

There is also soul-searching among military analysts about the 20-year US mission. Some say it should have focused on counter terrorism against al-Qaeda and not made the Taliban the enemy.

Secunder Kermani
Reporting from Kandahar

Khashayar Datoo asks whether there are many underground schools for women or are they too afraid to attend? And are people still rejecting the Taliban or have some come to accept their presence as a compromise?

There are “secret schools” that have been created, particularly in the capital Kabul. I visited one earlier this year and you can read a bit more about it here.

There are also tuition centres that are operating fairly openly and teaching girls and young women.

There is fear, but there are also women determined to try to build futures for themselves. That’s why we’ve also seen frequent, if small, protests by women in Kabul, despite the threat of arrest.

It’s also important to note that girls’ primary schools are still continuing, and women who were already in university have been allowed to continue their studies - but the continued closure of most girls’ secondary schools has led to an outpouring of national grief.

There are some small bands of guerrilla fighters who have been clashing with the Taliban in some northern parts of the country, but overall there’s a recognition that there’s no realistic alternative to the Taliban at the moment.

Alexandra Fouché
BBC News Live reporter

Image source, EPA

Payvand Seyedali was an education consultant working for foreign NGOs in Kabul last year, when the city fell to the Taliban. She had lived and worked there for 10 years, and decided to stay. Today she is still in Kabul and still working in the education sector.

Whereas last year, it wasn't clear what would happen under the new government, she says now "everyone is trying to make ends meet, to not starve, to hold on to shreds of hope for their children. People want jobs, they want education, they want rights - these needs are not political".

She says with people in urban areas, desperation is visible "at a level of intensity I’ve never seen before". More children are working than ever, and only a few women can be seen outside the home, she adds.

When it comes to girls' education, hopes have been dashed too. On 23 March this year, when girls in secondary education were due to go back, "over a million girls woke up, ate their breakfasts, put on clothes they’d set out the night before. That morning was filled with hope. The Taliban had a chance, that day, to turn sentiment in their favour.

"Instead, every school girl in the country above grade five was ordered away by a sudden decree... Secret schools are popping up, local governors and even individual public schools are taking autonomous decisions to reopen. Teachers are organising."

But a year of closures means more girls will have got married early, become pregnant or died in childbirth, she observes.