Taliban Gov’t in Afghanistan Resumes Issuing Passports

Hundreds of people began lining up outside the passport office in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan on Saturday night, despite subzero temperatures, in an effort to get travel documents as soon as possible after the office opened on Sunday. Some need medical treatment abroad; others just want to escape from the country. The Afghan government announced Saturday that it would resume issuing passports; the Taliban initially stopped doing so shortly after coming to power as US-led coalition troops withdrew from the country and the Western-backed regime collapsed in August. In October, authorities reopened the passport office in Kabul but work was suspended just days later after the biometric equipment broke down under the strain of a flood of applications. That issue, say authorities, has since been resolved. A local cell of the Islamic State group killed more than 150 people in August as Afghans massed at Kabul airport, desperate to leave Afghanistan as it fell to Islamist rule under the Taliban.