US troops may remain in Afghanistan past an August 31 deadline to evacuate Americans, US President Joe Biden said. He also said it would have been impossible to leave Afghanistan "without chaos ensuing". In a social media post, President Ghani said he had left the country to avoid clashes with the Taliban that would endanger millions of residents of Kabul. In their first official news conference in Kabul, the Taliban promised to respect the rights of women, seek good relations with other countries and not to extract retribution on former members of Afghan military. The Taliban stopped power in Afghanistan after the Afghan government collapsed and Ghani fled the country, bringing an end to a 20 years campaign in which the US along with its allies had tried to transform the war-ravaged nation.
