More than 1,000 have fled across the border, and hundreds more have handed over weapons to the Taliban

Patrick Cockburn | Over the last week, I have been watching the Taliban sweep across the map of northern Afghanistan, capturing places that I first visited in 2001 at the beginning of the US-backed war. Taliban fighters have seized the main bridge to Tajikistan on the Amu Darya, a river that I crossed on an unwieldy raft a few months into the conflict.