Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory, the higher education minister in the new Taliban government has said.
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will provide a "morale boost" to extremists plotting attacks elsewhere, and could again give them a base to operate as they did in the run-up to 9/11, the head of Britain's MI5 domestic spy service says.
The United States has completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, the Pentagon says, after a chaotic evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies to close out US involvement there after 20 years of conflict.
US forces helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee Taliban rule are on alert for more attacks after at least one Islamic State suicide bomber killed 85 people including 13 US soldiers outside the gates of Kabul airport.
Several people have been killed in the Afghan city of Asadabad as Taliban fighters fired on people waving the national flag at an Independence Day rally, a witness said.
Five people have been killed in chaos at Kabul airport, witnesses say, as US troops guarded the evacuation of embassy staff a day after the Taliban seized the Afghan capital and declared the war was over and peace prevailed.
Taliban fighters have taken control of another city in northern Afghanistan, an official says, the eighth provincial capital to fall to the insurgents in six days as US-led foreign forces complete their withdrawal.
Taliban fighters have tightened their control of captured territory in northern Afghanistan as residents hid in their homes and a pro-government commander vowed to fight to the death to defend Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north.
Taliban fighters have seized key government buildings in the northeastern Afghan city of Kunduz, leaving government forces hanging onto control of the airport and their own base, a provincial official says.
Taliban militants have overrun the second provincial capital in Afghanistan in the space of two days, as the group seeks to gain control of further cities, local officials have confirmed.
