Taliban paints its flag on outside wall of what was US embassy in Kabul By Steven Nelson

The radical group’s white and black banner, which features an Islamic statement of faith, was painted along a roadway and in front of a security watchtower.

US troops and diplomats left the country last week after a chaotic exodus from Kabul’s airport as the fundamentalist movement seized power.

Emma Graham-Harrison, a reporter for The Guardian who remained in Kabul after the Taliban takeover, tweeted an image of the US embassy entrance.

“Murals freshly painted over with a giant Taliban flag,” she wrote.

Fox News published a different image showing the Taliban flag and its Shahada statement, which is said by converts to Islam.

In that image, the group’s religious emblem for Afghanistan, featuring a Quran, is visible on a different wall.

The paint job is a provocation, as embassies typically are considered the property of the nation that owns them.

The US State Department rejected the Taliban’s reported request to keep the embassy open after US troops departed and instead moved US embassy operations for Afghanistan to Doha, Qatar.

The final US troops left Afghanistan last Monday, with more than 100 US citizens and thousands of Afghans who worked for the US government left stranded, despite President Biden’s assurances that US troops would remain until any American who wanted to leave could do so.

The State Department said Monday that four US citizens were able to escape Afghanistan via ground transportation in the past week.

But uncertainty remains for other Americans stuck in Taliban-ruled territory ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Fox News has obtained an image showing the Taliban’s flag painted outside the former U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Sunday that the Taliban is holding six airplanes carrying Americans and Afghan refugees “hostage” at an airport in northern Afghanistan. But organizers of some flights say the State Department has been holding up the flights due to issues vetting passengers who would be landing in Doha.