'Don't panic and get back to work', Taliban order former officials

FILE PHOTO: Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan August 17, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

(Reuters) - Ashraf Haidari, an economist at the Aghan finance ministry, was waiting anxiously at home when a call came from the Taliban: a commander ordered him back to work so he could help run the country once the "crazy foreigners" had left.

Like thousands of others working for the outgoing Western-backed administration, swept aside by the Islamist militants' lightning conquest of Afghanistan, he worried he might be the victim of reprisals https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/cowering-bathroom-some-afghans-dread-taliban-knock-door-2021-08-20.