Afghanistan: with the US gone, how soon will the Taliban show their true colours?

Switching from waging an insurgency to administering an entire country again is a daunting challenge the group must urgently address

By Wednesday morning the last US troops will have left Kabul and the day will break on a country entirely controlled by the Taliban, the last shadow of American threat banished.

It is still uncertain what this second iteration of the caliphate will look like, but with foreigners finally gone, the shape of the new Afghanistan will come into sharper focus.