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Once the United States announced its decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, it was only a matter of time before the country would fall to the Taliban. But it took much less time than expected with the Taliban declaring victory on Sunday after the Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled and the government, which was propped up by the US-led coalition for 20 years, collapsed.

The billions spent by the US and NATO on the Afghan military could not fix major internal flaws.

On August 15, the Taliban captured the Afghan capital Kabul and declared the war in Afghanistan over. The lightning speed with which the group made major territorial gains as the Afghan National Defence Security Forces (ANDSF) retreated without putting up a fight shocked many.

Al Jazeera visualises Afghanistan – a mostly mountainous country of 38 million people – which has suffered decades of war.

Over the past few days, the Taliban has taken 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals.

The armed group now controls an estimated 65 percent of the country’s territory, as the US-led foreign forces are about to complete the pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

Six important figures lead the Taliban movement, which has been fighting the Western-backed government since 2001.

The Taliban has been fighting the Western-backed Afghan government in Kabul since it was removed from power in 2001.

It originally drew members from so-called “mujahideen” fighters who, with support from the United States, repelled Soviet forces in the 1980s.

The bustling metropolis of six million saw businesses shut as people stayed indoors after the Taliban took over.

The first day of what the Taliban calls the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” saw Kabul, a bustling metropolis of six million, turn into a slow, male-dominated city without police or traffic controls and with shuttered businesses everywhere.

Leading figures in the insurgent group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which is the dominant faction in the insurgent-held regions of Idlib and its environs, have long expressed admiration for the Taliban in Afghanistan and its efforts in the face of the Afghan government that was backed by the United States and other international actors. For them, the Taliban’s recent victory in Afghanistan constitutes a victory for Muslims (i.e. Sunnis) and is an example of steadfastness in the face of a foreign occupation. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has released its own official statement congratulating the Taliban and the ‘people of the Afghans’. The statement highlights the Taliban’s years of fighting as an inspiration for its own ‘steadfastness’, while also urging the international community to recognise that it should not support oppressive regimes against the will of the peoples who reject them. The statement concludes with a hope for victory to liberate Syria and implement Islamic law.