Multiple federal agencies that operated in
Afghanistan and worked with Afghan citizens have
been hastily purging their websites, removing
articles and photos that could endanger the
Afghan civilians who interacted with them and
now fear retribution from the Taliban.
The online scrubbing campaign appeared to
begin late last week when it became clear that
the Afghan security forces had completely
collapsed and the Taliban would take over the
country far faster than even the most alarmist
official predictions. The concern is that the
Taliban or its supporters would search the
websites and identify Afghans who had worked
with the Americans or merely benefited from
their services.