Afghan government collapse.

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Dostum has apparently come back to Afghanistan (he was being treated for health issues in Turkey). Obviously a criminal, but I can't blame his partisans for joining up with him.

Kunduz has fallen.

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Worth pointing out that this version of the Taliban is very different from the original in some important ways: they're much more comfortable with the idea of modern governance (there has even been some deeply strange bragging of late about how taxes on businesses are lower in Taliban controlled districts) and even with the concept of 'foreign relations' as something that extends beyond talking to ISI bagmen every so often. They are still spectacularly nasty bastards of course. I suspect that most of this shift is generational.

Particularly grim humour came from their recent deals with China, where they promised to ban Uighur foreign fighters or mention that affair at all in return for Chinese support. They really have learnt from their patrons!

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Lots of claims above that the Taliban enjoy "massive" public support in Afghanistan.

Like a lot of conventional wisdom about Afghanistan it is a view that is dependent on knowing very little about the place, on having never seriously talked to any Afghans and on certain assumptions that are frankly racist. They had a degree of popularity in Pashtun-majority regions in the middle 1990s as they presented an apparent alternative to the chaos of warlordism, but this faded very rapidly as the reality of what their rule meant became apparent. Wars are not exercises in democracy and the Taliban controlling this or that city or district does not mean that locals like them. What is true is that the Ghani 'government' is unpopular and lacks credibility particularly in those parts of the country most naturally hostile to the Taliban. Ghani's poor reputation amongst the smaller ethnic groups has had catastrophic consequences.

Makes you wonder how things would have been different if Abdullah Abdullah had won the "election" (or if Ahmed Shah Masood hadn't been offed before 9/11).

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Lots of claims above that the Taliban enjoy "massive" public support in Afghanistan.

Has there ever been any serious attempt to quantify this?

Have just seen somewhere else an equally serious claim that only about 10% of the population are strong supporters, and that what is happening is more akin to a military coup

I'd say it's that as well as a Pakistani colonial takeover.

The issue is, even though Pakistan is not trusted by the Afghans, the fact they are Muslim and not far away infidels is pretty important. If the Afghan government was perpetually dependent on a non-Muslim power it was always going to seem alien, especially to the sort of person who becomes inspired to be a soldier.

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The neo-Taliban is more multicultural, by choice or by circumstance, than its original iteration which makes it unlikely resistance for their rule will take on the same explicitly ethnic resistance that characterised the Northern Alliance, but there are lots of other dangers that the Taliban will take on if they attempt to make a centralised state - it may turn out that this insurgency, although less parochial than the initial Taliban, is too riddled with contradictions, a group held together out of little but hostility to the Kabul regime.

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China's role is more geostrategic than material: bolsters its growing alliance with Pakistan and also helps avoid overspill into their own borders. In a realist sense, the Taliban - insular and nationalistic - is less of a threat than more revolutionary Islamist movements or an open warzone; and if you have them in your pocket you can allow them to nip ISIS style movements that are interested in international Islamist insurrection in the bud.

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I guess there were at least a handful of True Believers in Communism, whereas I can't see why anyone would go their grave defending the current government.

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Tbh now that I think of the timeline, it's probably less ideology more that our friend Dostum  was affiliated with the communists in name so the "Communist forces" were just a bunch of Uzbeks loyal to their leader. I think any true Communism was stamped out in the brutal purges after the Saur Revolution.

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The other difference between now and then is Afghanistan has definitely a more "modern" place than it was in the 90s: supposedly the only computer back then was possessed by Mullah Omar himself, who did not know how to switch it on: Kabul and other cities were small Soviet relics with decades old technology. Today Afghanistan is far more urbanized, literate and middle class, which doesn't necessarily mean more secular but does mean Omar's old style will have a few spanners thrown in the works.

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The Taliban, like any political group, is made up of multitudes of factions and individuals with their own interpretation of ideal strategy, goals, tactics and governing.  Certain factions are in the old Pashtun-first sphere, others are in the Iran camp and so on. The endgame of Iran, Pakistan, the West and others is to sponsor their own favoured camp to form a government that boosts their own strategic aims and benefits their allied groups.