Kabul review – this thriller about Afghanistan’s abandonment is every bit as gripping as it is horrifying

This tense, powerful six-parter starkly captures the nation’s slide into oppressive terror. Its capturing of a shameful moment in history is hugely vivid

The final episode of Kabul pointedly soundtracks its opening scene with a speech given by George W Bush when America invaded Afghanistan in 2001. “The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies,” Bush’s teleprompter tells him to say. “The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people.”

This taut six-part thriller, a pan-European co-production, is set in Afghanistan’s capital in August 2021, at the end of a 20-year western intervention that has, ultimately, not delivered the stated goal of freeing the country’s people from the fundamentalist authoritarianism of the Taliban regime. To the contrary, the Taliban are ready to install a more fearsome version of their old government as soon as the scheduled withdrawal of the Americans and their European allies takes place.

Kabul aired on BBC Four and is available on iPlayer in the UK and on SBS On Demand in Australia