The Taliban’s principal task has changed radically in that they are no longer an insurgency but now have a daunting responsibility for 40 million people, half facing starvation in a collapsed economy. The consoling statements about order, stability, women’s rights made in English have no meaning on the ground, where all the rhetoric up to now has been about legitimizing violence.

Western countries are scrabbling to coordinate their responses. Raab said he is ‘putting a group together that can exert maximum moderating influence on what the Taliban are doing next.’ The weakest of UN resolutions has been passed that ‘expects,’ ‘requests,’ and ‘requires’ the Taliban to do a variety of things. But there was no sense of what would happen if they did not. Sanctions? They are already in place. Bounties on individual members? Two members of the Haqqani family with US bounties on their heads have been moving openly around Kabul.

And as for holding the Taliban accountable: they made promises that they would sever links with al-Qaeda in order to secure release of their prisoners and the American withdrawal. But al-Qaeda has now put out a statement celebrating the Taliban victory, and a senior associate of Osama bin Laden, Amin ul-Haq was filmed returning to his home in Nangarhar in the east.