It was an eventful week as Afghanistan changed hands.
Tonight, let's have a quick recap on what happened in the past week as the Taliban got their wish of ruling Afghanistan again.
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From a normal day as usual in Afghanistan, to the country changing hands - all in seven days.
Everything was hard to swallow for the most part, who witnessed the megalomaniac Taliban win city after city, topple the embattled government and grab the grand prize of Kabul.
Key routes were seized, border crossings overtaken and swaths of remote areas overrun by the Taliban military.
On August 9th, a usual Monday saw Taliban insurgents claim the northern cities of Aybak and Sar-e Pul.
To the end of last week, the country's second- and third-largest cities were captured.
That meant two-thirds of the country were in the hands of the Taliban.
On Saturday, the city's fate seemed all but sealed, despite President Ashraf Ghani delivering a televised speech, during which he vowed not to give up, and will continue to fight the Taliban for that matter.
But to the Taliban, the President said that tongue-in-cheek.
In the beginning of this week, the last city besides the capital of Kabul eventually fell to militants, sending members of Afghan forces either fleeing the country or surrendering to the Taliban military.
At night, the entire country was seized. A string of victory by the Taliban bespoke the complete takeover of the country.
Just a day ago, the Afghan President vowed not to give up. But before wrapping his head around what had just happened, the President joined the mass exodus of his fellow Afghans and foreigners, leaving the country right away.
That literally stirred up a hornet's nest, with the Afghan President's nemeses and his citizens criticising him for shrugging off his responsibility for the Afghan people and his entire country.
The youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate and known for her fight for girls' education in Afghanistan, Malala Yousafzai said Afghan women couldn't put a good face on their grim and dismal future.
Malala is one of the most outspoken figures of girls' rights to go to school. But always campaigning for one of the Taliban's pet hates carried a hefty price tag.
It was in October 2012, when, on her way home from school, Malala was shot in the head by Taliban fighters.
She was sent to a hospital in Britain as hundreds of thousands said their sympathies were with the paradigm of valour.
But it was Malala's torch of courage which turned out to be instrumental in empowering the hundreds of thousands to fight for girls' right for education as she made a speedy recovery.
Malala said in an article in the New York Times this week that after the Taliban took over her hometown of Swat Valley in Pakistan in 2007, girls were thereafter banned from education.
Now, despair has set in for Afghan girls and young women, who are once again worrying they might never be allowed to enter a classroom or hold a book again.
The Taliban is also notorious for high domestic violence rate during the Taliban's tenure back in the 1990s.
Shocking statistics reveal that 87 percent of Afghan women and girls experience abuse in their lifetime, and things are generally worse for pregnant women.
The Taliban vowed on Wednesday to uphold women's rights, and encouraged women to return to work, girls to return to school and welcomed women to join the Taliban government.
That appears satisfactory on paper, but it remains to be seen whether the Taliban's decision to mend their ways by respecting women's rights and stop its nefarious oppression on females is purely a quid pro quo to the American troop withdrawal, as the Taliban squelch rumours that the Taliban would refuse to hearken to the people and would all but eliminate women's rights after regaining control.
For older generations, the Taliban's swift takeover bodes trouble as scenes of the Taliban oppressing the Afghan people remain forever etched, and sure enough, nothing can make up for their anguish and suffering.
But for the others, they wonder what the future holds for Afghanistan as the country embarks upon a new chapter.
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