Birds dip between low branches that hang over glittering brooks along the drive from Jalalabad heading south toward the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. Then, the landscape changes, as lush fields give way to barren land. 

Up ahead, Achin is located among a rise of rocky mountains that line the border with Pakistan, a region pounded by American bombs since the beginning of the war. 

The Taliban are creating a massive CCTV network covering Afghan cities, which could repurpose a plan drawn up by the Americans before their withdrawal in 2021, an Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters, as authorities try to replenish thousands of cameras which have already been set up in the capital Kabul. .

The United Nations said Wednesday it has documented more than 1,600 cases of human rights violations committed by authorities in Afghanistan during arrests and detentions of people, and urged the Taliban government to stop torture and protect the rights of detainees.

Nearly 50% of the violations consisted of “torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.

The Pentagon’s Central Command has ordered interviews of roughly two dozen more service members who were at the Kabul airport when suicide bombers attacked during US forces’ chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, as criticism persists that the deadly assault could have been stopped.

The interviews, ordered by Gen. Erik Kurilla, head of US Central Command, were triggered in part by assertions by at least one service member injured in the blast who said he was never interviewed about it and that he might have been able to stop the attackers.