BIDEN’S MESS: Afghans are racing to erase their online lives.

“We are stuck here,” he says. “We don’t know what will happen.” When he learned the Taliban had arrived in the capital city on August 15 he immediately burned some of the documents that showed he had worked for the United States. Now, like so many Afghans, he is trying to find a way out.

Others who have worked with the US have kept documents but hidden them, knowing that such paperwork is vital to gain a visa and a potential route out of Afghanistan. But it remains a horrific quandary: Taliban militia are already reportedly going door-to-door to find those who have worked with foreign governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Muhibullah – who, for obvious reasons, WIRED is not naming fully – is one of millions of Afghans now tussling with an impossible choice: to what extent should they erase any evidence of their past lives now that the ultra-conservative Taliban are the new rulers of Afghanistan?

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