When the Taliban regained control, how they planned to govern was uncertain - particularly when it came to women and girls.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the group, said last year the country’s new leaders would respect the rights of women and minorities"as per Afghan norms and Islamic values".

But come 23 March 2022 - the first day of the school year in Afghanistan - female students arrived to find closed gates and armed Taliban guards.

Despite assurances only days earlier that schools would reopen for girls above sixth grade, they were barred from secondary education.

The number of women in work also fell, with a report from the International Labour Organisation, external (ILO) in January finding that 16% less Afghan women were in work by the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared with 6% of men.

The ILO predicted this figure would decrease further – to be 21% lower than before the Taliban takeover – by mid-2022.

Restrictions apply personally, too. Women must be accompanied by a male guardian for all but short journeys and are required to cover their faces in public.

Away from human rights, the Afghan economy has been left shattered. Around 75% of public spending used to come from foreign grants. They have stopped since the Taliban came to power, though humanitarian aid has continued, and around $9bn (£7bn) of Afghanistan's foreign reserves have been frozen, leading to a shortage of both funds and physical cash in the country.

A report from the World Bank in April warned that more than a third of the population was now no longer able to meet basic food needs.

Image source, Reuters

One of those caught up in the turmoil in Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over Kabul a year ago today, was the UK Ambassador Laurie Bristow, who had only been appointed to the job two months before.

He helped with the evacuation of 15,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, lives which he says "would have been at mortal risk if we hadn’t have done that”.

He says young British soldiers who were deployed to help with evacuation efforts were "dealing with a situation that nothing could possibly have prepared you for”.

Many Afghan families are being placed in UK hotels until social housing can be found. Earlier this month, the UK’s refugees minister appealed to councils to help house 10,500 Afghans currently living in UK hotels.

"It’s nobody's wish or intention that people who come to the UK under very difficult circumstances should still be living in hotels.

They need to be moved into housing, they need to get their children into school, they need to get into jobs and they need to rebuild their lives."

A big issue which challenges the more moderate image the Taliban is trying to portray is the restrictions they’ve put on women.

There are no women in decision making positions and in March, the Taliban reversed a decision to allow Afghan girls to return to high schools.

Asked when secondary schools would open again for girls, spokesman for the Taliban government, Zabihullah Mujahid, tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that some problems have been highlighted by the religious scholars who decide on education in the country, and the government is “trying our best to solve them”.

"Our scholars have issues with the safety of girls travelling to and from schools. We cannot only make decisions based on the situation in Kabul, we also have to consider villages and districts where people don’t want girls to go to school," Mujahid says.

"We know [students] have lost time and that is a problem, but on the other hand the consensus of the people is also important."

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

Image source, Jack Garland

The messages are startling, to say the least.

"They want me to give my job to my brother," writes one woman on a messaging platform.

"We earned our positions with our experience and education… if we accept this it means we have betrayed ourselves," declares another.

I'm sitting down with a few former senior civil servants from the finance ministry who share their messages.

They're part of a group of more than 60 women, many from the Afghanistan Revenue Directorate, who banded together after being ordered to go home last August.

They say Taliban officials then told them: Send CVs of your male relatives who can apply for your jobs.

"This is my job," insists one woman who, like all women in this group, anxiously asks for her identity to be hidden.

"I worked with so much difficulty for more than 17 years to get this job and finish my master's degree. Now we are back to zero."

Taliban officials say women are still working. Those who do are mainly medical staff, educators and security workers including at the airport - spaces where women frequent.

Read more.

Image source, Reuters

The Taliban accelerated its takeover campaign of Afghanistan in August 2021, culminating with the fall of Kabul on 15 August. But what has happened in the year since?

September 2021: The Taliban announces a new interim government – it is all male

September 2021: Dozens of women in cities including Herat and Kabul protest over the Taliban’s policies towards women

October 2021: Tens are killed and more are injured after a Shia mosque in the city of Kandahar is hit during Friday prayers. The Islamic State group claims responsibility for the attack

December 2021: The Taliban ban long-distance road trips for women travelling alone

January 2022: Members of the Taliban meet Western officials in Norway for the first talks in Europe since the group took control. The aim is to discuss human rights and the humanitarian crisis in the country, where 95% of Afghans do not have enough to eat, according to the UN

March 2022: In a last-minute U-turn, secondary school girls are barred from attending class, only hours after schools reopen

May 2022: Women and girls are ordered to wear the hijab and cover their faces when in public for the first time in decades. Female TV presenters are among those targeted by the measure, sparking protests from some female TV presenters, who refuse to cover their faces

June 2022: A huge earthquake on the border with Pakistan kills more than 1,000 people and injures over 1,500, making it the deadliest earthquake to strike the country in two decades. It is a major challenge for the Taliban

August 2022: Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri – the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks – is killed in a US drone strike in Kabul

Secunder Kermani
Reporting from Kandahar

Taliban members and their supporters have been parading up and down a main road in the southern city of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the movement.

Armed fighters, onboard vehicles captured last year from the previous Afghan government’s security forces, waved white and black flags as excited young children perched beside them.

For the Taliban, today marks their “independence”, the culmination of their insurgency against US-led international forces and the former government.

Many other Afghans, however, are despondent about the direction the country is being taken in, lamenting the continued closure of most girls' secondary schools, for example.

That sense of despair is not universal however, in rural villages, particularly in the south and east of the country, which once saw heavy fighting, residents are relishing life without the fear of being caught in the crossfire of war.

What unites the country is concern at the dire economic and humanitarian situation, with poverty and malnutrition levels rising as foreign funding which propped up the previous government has been cut back.

Image source, Reuters

One of the most shocking aspects of the Taliban's offensive was how quickly Kabul - and with it, Afghanistan - fell.

Here's a timeline of what led to that moment, and what happened over the following days.

14 April: US President Joe Biden announces his troops will withdraw from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, bringing America's longest war to a close

7 June: Afghan government officials say fighting is raging in 26 of the country's 34 provinces

2 July: US troops quietly pull out of their main military Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, an hour's drive from Kabul

14 August: Now in control of more than half of Afghanistan's 370 districts, the Taliban take the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and, with little resistance, Pul-e-Alam - the capital of Logar, just 40 miles south of Kabul

15 August: The eastern city of Jalalabad is taken without a fight. Later that day, the Taliban enter Kabul and former President Ghani flees the country. A picture is later shared showing the insurgents behind Ghani's desk in the Presidential Palace

16 August: Videos surface, which appear to show people falling to their deaths after clinging to C-17 jets as they take off from Kabul airport, in a bid to flee an Afghanistan rules by the Taliban

30 August: US finishes withdrawal of American citizens from Afghanistan. The UK also announces its last military flight has left the country

Yogita Limaye
Reporting from Kabul

The Taliban have announced a public holiday in Afghanistan to mark one year of them taking over the whole of this country.

At Kabul’s main square, fresh white and black Taliban flags have been put up, some against a mural that reads ‘By the grace of God, we defeated America’.

The mural was painted last year, in the days following the Taliban takeover, replacing more colourful pictures depicting life in Afghanistan that used to be on these walls.

Massoud Square is becoming an impromptu celebration site. In the last hour more and more Taliban have showed up, and there is now a crowd gathering on the main platform on the roundabout and the stairs leading to it, waving flags and playing music.

Image source, Adnan Sarwar

By the side of the road there are stalls selling large and small Taliban flags, and we’ve seen pickup trucks full of Taliban fighters stop by buying them, some draping them across the rear windshield of their cars, some draping the flag around themselves.

There are reports that in a few areas, Taliban are going around in markets, closing down shops that are open, to ensure the holiday is observed.

As we mark a year since Kabul fell to the Taliban, let’s remember the events of that Sunday – and what led to it.

Morning

Despite reports early on in the day that Taliban fighters had arrived at the city gates, the team of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani posted a video showing him discussing the city's protection with his interior minister and other security officials.

Image source, Facebook

The clip seemed to suggest that an agreement with the Taliban was imminent, and that any fighting in Kabul would be avoided. Quickly, though, the plan began to unravel.

Afternoon

At around 15:30 local time, Ghani fled the country along with two senior aides. They flew to Termez, Uzbekistan, then onwards to the UAE. News of his escape did not reach Afghans – including some back at the Presidential Palace – for hours.

In images beamed across the world, triumphant but clearly surprised Taliban fighters were pictured at the same desk in the presidential palace that Ghani was sitting at just hours earlier in that video. Kabul was theirs to take.

Image source, AP

Evening

Word of Ghani’s departure slowly starting to get out, though it was days before he appeared live on Facebook from the UAE, where he had been allowed to stay for “humanitarian reasons”. He claimed it was not his decision to leave.

Back in Afghanistan, the speed at which the Taliban took Kabul on that Sunday shocked many – and marked a turning point that would overhaul life in Afghanistan.

Image source, EPA

The Taliban – a militant Islamist political movement – were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001, but seized control of the country once again following a withdrawal of Western forces.

They emerged in the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989 and quickly became popular owing to their success in stamping out corruption and curbing lawlessness. But they also courted controversy, enforcing living by a strict interpretation of Sharia law.

Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka. The Taliban also banned television, music and cinema, and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over going to school.

Their return to rule brought an end to almost 20 years of a US-led coalition's presence in Afghanistan.

You can read more about the group here.

Image source, Reuters

Hello, and welcome. It’s been a year since the Taliban seized control of Kabul and toppled the Western-backed government.

The stunning fall of Afghanistan back into the hands of the hardline Islamist militant group as the US and its allies ended their 20-year war, led to dramatic scenes as Afghans tried to flee the country, some clinging to packed planes taking off from Kabul airport.

Since then, life for Afghan civilians has changed dramatically, not least for women and girls.

We’ll be looking back at what happened a year ago, the desperate situation that many Afghans face and how refugees are faring in the UK and elsewhere.

Later, our correspondents on the ground will also answering your questions on everything from the food crisis to al-Qaeda. Stay with us.