• What does it feel like to live in a city on the brink of falling to the Taliban?

Our reporter visited Ghazni, not far from Kabul, where the Taliban impose “taxes” on businesses and kill police officers with impunity.

He found weary and fearful residents who say they can hardly tell anymore who’s in charge. The sense of defenselessness highlights the failures of a U.S.-led war in its 16th year and the struggles of building a democracy in the midst of bloody conflict.

And yet Afghanistan is now taking in refugees forced to return from neighboring Pakistan, among them a young boy named Bilal, above, starting a new life with his only friend, his pet parrot.

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