Kandahar’s fall to the Taliban is a moment of huge significance

Afghanistan's second city was the capital of the jihadist group until 2001 and has vital strategic and symbolic importance

In the sprawling compound of Mullah Omar, the Taliban's first emir, outside the southern city of Kandahar, curious onlookers were poking through his rooms.

There was the little mosque inside the walls, a camel stable damaged by a US rocket, and a series of bare rooms, some scattered with pages torn from a religious text, one a bedroom hung with a picture of an Alpine scene. Nearby, armed men sat on a strange sculpture of a mountain surrounded by spindly palm trees.