Rebels say they are holding on despite celebratory gunfire in Kabul amid reports that hardliners have wiped out last pocket of resistance
Militia forces say they are enduring “heavy assaults” as they battle the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, the final holdout against hardline Islamist control.
The Taliban face the enormous challenge of shifting gears from insurgent group to governing power, days after the US fully withdrew its troops and ended two decades of war.
Continue reading...Afghan resistance fighters clashed with the Taliban in the Panjshir valley, the final province holding out against hardline Islamist control. Celebratory gunfire rang out across Kabul late on Friday as rumours spread that the valley had fallen. The Taliban made no official claim to victory and the former Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh, among other opposition leaders, said his side had not given up
Continue reading...There are signs of a return to something worryingly close to the hardline restrictions of the past across Afghan life
When Taliban fighters moved into Herat city in western Afghanistan last month, one thing mattered more to some of them than the battle itself. As gunmen faced off around the governor’s office, a group of militants came to Shogofa’s* workplace and ordered all the women home.
“They hadn’t even taken all the city, but they came to our headquarters. The manager called an emergency meeting and they told all the women to leave,” she said.
Continue reading...Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation
When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.
The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says UK must engage with Taliban in Afghanistan after meeting with Qatari officials
Evacuations may be able to resume from Kabul airport “in the near future”, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said as he expressed a need for direct engagement with the Taliban.
Speaking after talks in Qatar on Thursday, Raab raised hopes that the Britons and Afghans left behind may be able to leave on flights from Afghanistan’s capital.
Continue reading...Those on board the cramped military plane weren’t granted a last glimpse of their homeland before the difficult journey ahead, while all knew thousands still waited desperately below
The American marine shouted “push!”. And hundreds of people did, shoving inside the Boeing C-17 military aircraft; tumbling over, then pulling their bodies into tight huddles on the floor to let as many others in as possible.
As the rear door closed and the deafening engines started, lifting the heavy plane off the runway at Kabul’s international airport, people broke down wailing; crying. Now refugees.
Continue reading...Official says ceremony is being prepared at presidential palace in Kabul – two weeks after Islamist militia seized control
The Taliban are expected to announce a new government in Afghanistan within hours, as chaos in the country deepened and aid experts warned of imminent economic collapse.
More than two weeks after the Islamist militia seized control, sources told Agence-France Presse that the cabinet could be presented after morning prayers on Friday and Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a Taliban official, said on social media that a ceremony was being prepared at the presidential palace in Kabul.
Continue reading...The Afghan television anchor Beheshta Arghand has been evacuated from Afghanistan amid risks for her safety and freedom after interviewing a Taliban official live on air after the fall of Kabul in late August.
Arghand, who is now in Qatar, said she had felt trapped in a leadership that did not accept women. The Taliban limited freedom of the press to ask questions, enforced burkas to be worn on some TV stations and suspended female journalists at others
Continue reading...Kabul evacuees at Sicilian air base of Sigonella worry about those left living under Taliban rule
As another 250 Afghan refugees evacuated from Kabul left the Sigonella airbase in Sicily bound for Philadelphia, Haifa, 30, watches the plane lift off the runway and disappear into the clouds.
With dozens of other compatriots, she waits in line for her turn for an afternoon departure, when another plane will bring hundreds of other Afghans to the other side of the ocean, far away from the Taliban. There are 3,000 Afghans at the base, known as the Hub of the Med and serving as a transit station complete with temporary lodgings, religious and recreational areas, for evacuees moving on to other locations.
Continue reading...Mark Milley says it's possible the US will seek to coordinate on strikes in Afghanistan, though defence secretary Lloyd Austin remains sceptical
US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said it was “possible” the United States will seek to coordinate with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against Islamic State militants or others.
The extent and nature of a US-Taliban relationship, now that the war is over, is one of the key issues to be worked out. US military commanders have coordinated daily with Taliban commanders outside Kabul’s international airport over the past three weeks to facilitate the evacuation of more than 124,000 people, but that was a matter of convenience for both parties.
Continue reading...Analysis: Insurgents’ cooperation is needed for evacuations, but PM could face criticism for engaging with them
Boris Johnson’s decision to dispatch a senior spy chief to talk directly to the Taliban in Qatar reflects an uncomfortable but necessary reality: the UK has little option but to engage with the insurgent group now in control of Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK are believed to remain trapped in the country – UK ministers refuse to say how many – and hundreds of British nationals. With western troops withdrawn, it is only with Taliban cooperation that people will be able to leave safely and smoothly.
Continue reading...Women forced out of jobs despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working, survey finds
Female journalists in Afghanistan are being forced out of jobs and told to stay at home despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working and to respect press freedom, according to a report.
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) says it believes fewer than 100 of Kabul’s 700 female journalists are still working and only a handful are continuing to work from home in two other Afghan provinces. Others have been attacked and harassed.
Continue reading...Taliban soldiers inspected damaged aircraft and equipment at Kabul airport after the last US troops withdrew from a shattered Afghanistan. US troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armoured vehicles before they left. A day after their departure, Taliban supporters celebrated across the country, with even a mock funeral held with coffins draped with US, British and French flags
Bordering states such as Pakistan urged to temporarily take in Afghans bound for Europe and the US
Countries neighbouring Afghanistan have been offered millions in aid if they are prepared to temporarily harbour tens of thousands of refugees, prior to security checks clearing them for transit to Europe and the US, but Pakistan and other bordering states have warned they will not take more refugees permanently.
Iran could see a large influx of refugees – mainly Hazara Shias – reaching the country overland. Refugee specialists inside Iran have suggested as many as 7,000 people were crossing the border illegally a day, with no serious control over the entire 980km (608-mile) border, and very little international aid.
Continue reading...As guards dismantle barricades at airport, leadership holds talks on how the spoils of power will be shared
The Taliban marked the start of their first day in full control of Afghanistan with celebratory gunfire, minutes after the last US plane of soldiers and their ambassador lifted off from Kabul airport, sealing Washington’s humiliating defeat in its longest war.
Twenty years, tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars separated the arrival of the first US troops on Afghan soil after 9/11 and the Taliban’s triumphant restoration in the Afghan capital.
Continue reading...Analysis: Experts are divided over whether events in Afghanistan will significantly increase risk of attacks
In three days in earlier this month Islamist militants killed more than 120 civilians in a series of attacks in the Sahel, a belt of increasingly anarchic and violent territory across Africa, where such groups have gone from strength to strength in recent years. Thousand of miles to the east, fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabaab stormed a military base in the centre of Somalia.
None of these attacks received much attention – nor did the recent arrest of IS sympathisers in Australia, the attempted murder of a moderate politician in the Maldives or a court case against militants who attacked LGBT activists in Bangladesh.
Continue reading...The 20-year US military presence in Afghanistan is over. The head of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie, announced just after midnight Tuesday morning, 31 August, that the last flight out of Kabul was 'now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan'. 'Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after September 11 2001,' he said.
United States secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a speech a few hours later that a 'new chapter' with America's engagement with Afghanistan had begun. 'It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over,' he said.
After 20 years, last US flight departs Kabul, leaving Afghanistan to its fate
Continue reading...Celebratory shots rang out in Kabul as the United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, ending 20 years of war that culminated in the militant Taliban's return to power. Footage from inside the city in the early hours of Tuesday morning showed loud gunfire ringing out, lighting up the skyline as Taliban fighters fired into the sky to mark the end of two decades of US military presence. Video released by the Taliban shows Taliban fighters walking through Kabul airport after the US forces had left.
Continue reading...The Pentagon has said it is investigating reports of civilian casualties from a drone strike on Sunday in Kabul, but is 'not in a position to dispute' accounts from the scene of nine people from one family being killed, including seven children.
US military officials continued to insist however that the strike hit an Islamic State car bomb, pointing to 'secondary explosions' at the scene.
That conflicted with reports from Kabul, that the targeted vehicle belonged to a civilian and that children were in it when it was struck by a missile from a US drone.
Initial reports said at least 10 people were killed, nine from the same family, who lived on the street where the attack happened, adding to the bloodshed and chaos of the last days of the 20-year US military presence.
Among the dead were three two-year-olds, two three-year-olds and two 10-year-olds, according to reports from Kabul
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