Acting chief executive of Illawarra refugee support organisation SCARF, Ian Jarman, said the "concerning developments" had most likely opened up "old traumatic wounds" for the region's Afghan refugee community.

"Many of them are still coming to grips with it because as you can imagine many probably have family there and they are unsure of what's happening," he said.

"It is still pretty raw for many of them at the moment, because they probably wouldn't be able to contact family, as people go to ground.

"The very fact they are here indicates they come from segments of the community that would be persecuted under the developments we are seeing, which is pretty concerning."

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Taliban's power play did not come as a surprise to UOW's Theo Farrell, a former advisor to international military commanders in Afghanistan, who has also been involved with talks with senior Taliban figures.

"I think most observers anticipated that when US forces completely withdrew the Taliban were most likely to by degrees take control of the country," Professor Farrell said.

"I think most observers would have expected that but I think what has taken everybody by surprise is just how quickly they have done it."

Now University of Wollongong's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Farrell said things could have gone much worse in Kabul.

"Overall it is not a great picture but the one small mercy is there hasn't been a bloodbath, but rather a peaceful surrender of the city," he said.

Prof Farrell said the West shouldn't be surprised at how quickly the Taliban took over a whole series of provincial capitals and major cities one by one.

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He said the policies of Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country as Taliban forces took control of Kabul, gave the Taliban the ammunition it needed.

"This was done partly through force of arms but very often by the very Afghan way of doing things - through deal making," Prof Farrell said.

"The Taliban was able to make deals with various warlords and persuade them to change sides basically because Ghani sidelined these leaders.

"Ghani was a very western-style technocratic leader who was popular with the West and he was seeking to develop the Afghan state as a central state.

"To do this he removed power from some major warlords.

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"This is significant because these warlords have very large militia forces. They would have been the next in line defence once the Afghan security forces failed.

"They actually came back in the last week or so and tried to remobilise their militia to resist the Taliban but it was just too late. The Taliban taking districts around capitals and the sidelining of major warlords by Ashraf Ghani are really important in enabling the Taliban to have these blitzkrieg successes."

Prof Farrell said the international community were now busy extricating their own staff.

"It is interesting for the Americans because the last thing they wanted was a comparison with Saigon in 1975 when these evocative images of the embassy in Saigon with people being evacuated from the rooftop to a helicopter.

"That's exactly what we've seen. We've seen helicopters faring personnel away from the US embassy in Kabul and the airport.

"There is a very strong, this is Biden's Vietnam moment - that's exactly what they wanted to avoid, but the simple fact is there is no other way of getting the staff out safely."

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