US evacuation flights pause in Kabul, reports say – live

The US State Department has put out a joint statement from the foreign ministers of the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after a meeting earlier today, appealing to the Taliban, effectively, in a display of resolve that appears undermined by the scenes on the ground in Afghanistan - and what is known of the Taliban.

We are united in our deep concern about the grave events in Afghanistan and call for an immediate end to the violence. We also express deep concerns about reports of serious human rights violations and abuses across Afghanistan.

We affirm our commitment to the statement by the UN Security Council on 16 August, and we call for adherence to international norms and standards on human rights and international humanitarian law in all circumstances.

Related: Afghanistan reports of torture and killing contradict Taliban’s promises

The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity, and to build on the important political, economic and social achievements they have made over the last twenty years. We stand by civil society actors who must be able to continue to safely play their meaningful role in Afghan society. We call on all parties in Afghanistan to work in good faith to establish an inclusive and representative government, including with the meaningful participation of women and minority groups. Under the current circumstances, NATO has suspended all support to the Afghan authorities.

Any future Afghan government must adhere to Afghanistan’s international obligations; safeguard the human rights of all Afghans, particularly women, children, and minorities; uphold the rule of law; allow unhindered humanitarian access; and ensure that Afghanistan never again serves as a safe haven for terrorists.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Why not all Islamist extremists are buoyed by the Taliban’s victory

Analysis: deep fault lines, especially with Isis, may counter Afghanistan’s propaganda advantage for jihadists

Few doubt that the Taliban victory in Afghanistan will give violent Islamist extremists across the world an historic boost, encouraging them in their campaigns to overthrow and replace local regimes – but it has also revealed the deep fault lines that have weakened the jihadist movement in the past decade.

Sunni militants in the Middle East and beyond have already made clear they believe the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan vindicates their own strategies and ideology. Coming just weeks before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, events in Kabul have a powerful resonance. Many statements have been jubilant.

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Spain offers itself as hub for Afghans who collaborated with EU

Evacuees who have worked with EU institutions will arrive in Spain and then be settled in various countries

Spain has offered itself as the EU’s hub to take in Afghans who have collaborated with its institutions over the years, as Germany said there was an emerging consensus within the bloc to also ease passage for a limited number of other people in need of protection from Taliban reprisals.

However, migration experts warned that the vast majority of Afghan citizens already displaced by the fighting that brought the new regime to power will be left stranded unless European states proactively work to negotiate a safe corridor out of the country.

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Afghanistan: chaos and gunshots outside Kabul airport amid evacuations – video report

Tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans who collaborated with US and Nato forces remain stranded in Kabul, as governments grappled with an overwhelming backlog of visas and Taliban checkpoints that were preventing people safely reaching the airport. US troops and Taliban fighters have opened fire into the air to disperse crowds held up outside the airport as they attempt to escape the country

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Afghans need our help – there must be no empty seats on New Zealand’s rescue mission | Golriz Ghahraman

History judges uninterested bystanders harshly. New Zealand must commit to saving more Afghans from the Taliban regime

What is unfolding now in Afghanistan is a moment that Afghans can’t turn away from. It will mean separated families, death, torture and sexual slavery – women, the rainbow community, journalists and human rights defenders will be most zealously targeted. At this critical moment, they have hope of rescue. But in Aotearoa New Zealand, our government is at risk of letting this hope slip away. History judges uninterested bystanders harshly. It isn’t like us to be one of those.

This week our government announced we would send a New Zealand defence force (NZDF) vessel to bring a limited category of people back from Kabul. On Thursday one of our air force Hercules planes left for Afghanistan, and I acknowledge the risks our defence force personnel are taking in this time of Covid-19 to save the lives of people who have helped us.

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UK wrestles with effects of Taliban rule on terror, drugs and aid

Analysis: whether Britain should recognise Afghanistan’s new regime, and how soon, is a fraught question for officials

With the Taliban now firmly in control of most of Afghanistan, British government figures have been wrestling with what that means for everything from counter-terrorism to the drugs trade and aid.

How soon should Britain’s battlefield foes be recognised as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan? What attitude should the UK take to the burgeoning resistance coalescing around former Afghan government figures as the threat of renewed civil war looms?

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As I walk around Kabul, the streets are empty of women

A few days ago the capital was full of women going about their business. Now, the few that remain walk fast and full of fear

Four days after the quick and unexpected invasion of Kabul by the Taliban, the streets of the Afghan capital are almost entirely devoid of women.

The few women who are on the streets are wearing the traditional blue burqa, Islamic garb that, while customary in Afghanistan, was not used as widely in Kabul until now. Many women are dressed in the long black clothes commonly worn in the Middle East and Arab nations.

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Children passed over the walls of Kabul airport amid evacuation chaos – video

Footage shows desperate crowds passing children to US soldiers in the hope of getting them to safety at Kabul international airport. Taliban forces have set up checkpoints outside the airport, raising fears that even people with the correct documents needed to leave Afghanistan may not get through to their evacuation flights  

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Delaying US exit a month could have meant peace in Afghanistan, says negotiator

Biden’s hasty withdrawal removed leverage in talks with Taliban, says first female vice-president of Afghan parliament Fawzia Koofi

Joe Biden delaying the exit of American forces from Afghanistan by just a month could have made a significant difference to the outcome of continuing peace talks with the Taliban leadership, according to one of the negotiators.

Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and women’s rights activist, said the chaotic withdrawal undermined all leverage that the US and the Afghan government had had with the Taliban at the talks in Qatar.

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My escape from Afghanistan on a US military plane: ‘It was total chaos’ – video

Hundreds of people on the runway, women and children screaming, and gunshots lighting up the sky: Afghan journalist Ramin Rahman spoke to the Guardian about his chaotic escape from Hamid Karzai international airport the day the Taliban took Kabul.

Rahman, 27, left Kabul fearing for his life. As 'a progressive, outspoken journalist with tattoos' – he is basically the antithesis of what the Taliban stand for.

He described several hours of uncertainty and panic, running with hundreds of others towards US aircraft, and the agonising wait before the plane took off from Afghanistan

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Biden says US troops may stay in Afghanistan past 31 August deadline – video

Joe Biden says US troops may remain in Afghanistan past 31 August as it continues to evacuate US citizens. Biden told ABC News: "If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out." The comments came after Biden denied the withdrawal of troops could have been handled better. Large crowds continue to arrive at Kabul's airport, creating a logistical hurdle as countries try to evacuate citizens. The US says it is unable to escort citizens to the airport but can continue to secure airstrip, enabling flights to take off

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Open letter urges Boris Johnson to act on promise and evacuate Afghan journalists

The Guardian and other UK media demand action for those who have helped report from Afghanistan

UK media repeat call for evacuation of Afghan colleagues

Dear prime minister and foreign secretary,

When British media organisations wrote to you earlier this month about the grave Taliban threat to Afghan journalists and translators who had worked with us, you responded almost immediately. You recognised their vital contribution to a free press by reporting on the British mission in Afghanistan and promised colleagues at risk a path to safety. President Biden did the same in the United States.

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The Afghanistan debate showed that Boris Johnson’s flaws lead directly to tragedy | Zoe Williams

For Starmer, the point was ‘what are the human consequences when power is held by someone so unfit?’

The initial shock of a packed House of Commons, recalled in recess for an emergency debate on Afghanistan, was how unfamiliar the packed green benches now look. Even before the pandemic, arguably since the prorogation of parliament, there’s been a question mark over the point of it all; does a debate have to end in a vote, in order to have meaning? Is it otherwise just theatre, and if so, what democratic purpose does it serve?

The answer used to be very simple: it was to test and challenge the policy of the executive. It may have been ritualistic, but the ritual was dense with significance, indicating that no prime minister had the power simply to announce, every one must persuade.

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Taliban face financial crisis without access to foreign reserves

Analysis: As the US freezes Afghan reserves and Germany halts aid, the new rulers may find they are far short of what is required to govern

Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are likely to face a rapidly developing financial crisis, with foreign currency reserves largely unreachable and western aid donors – who fund the country’s institutions by about 75% – already cutting off or threatening to cut payments.

While the hardline Islamist group has moved in recent years to become more independent of outside financial supporters including Iran, Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Gulf, its financial flows – amounting to $1.6bn (£1.2bn) last year – are far short of what it will require to govern.

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Boris Johnson struggles to justify Afghanistan stance to hostile MPs

Analysis: PM fails to make convincing defence of foreign policy amid criticism from across the Commons

Other leaders have had the luxury of being able to deliver an uninterrupted televised address. But Boris Johnson had to justify the ignominious retreat from Afghanistan in front of a testy, and at times hostile, House of Commons – dominated by critics from his own side asking if Britain could have been better prepared and if the collapse of the Kabul government could have been averted.

It was an occasion the UK prime minister struggled to rise to, not helped by the format that Downing Street had opted for: a general debate, which meant MPs were allowed to rise and seek to intervene as Johnson spoke, generating a crescendo of background noise after he had completed a line or two.

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Emotional wounds have been ‘torn open’, says Afghanistan veteran Tom Tugendhat MP – video

In an impassioned Commons speech during the debate on Afghanistan, the Conservative MP speaks about the impact of the Taliban takeover on veterans. He criticises Joe Biden's assertion that the Afghan army did not adequately resist the Taliban

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‘I wouldn’t stay on holiday whilst Kabul was falling’: Starmer slams Johnson in Commons – video

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has castigated the government over its reaction to events unfolding in Afghanistan, saying the prime minister's response to the Taliban 'arriving at the gates of Kabul' was 'to go on holiday', and that the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, could not 'coordinate international response from the beach'. 

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‘Where is global Britain on streets of Kabul?’: Theresa May blasts UK failure in Afghanistan – video

The former prime minister Theresa May has suggested her successor, Boris Johnson, had hoped 'on a wing and a prayer it’d be all right on the night' once the US and its allies had withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Johnson has faced anger from MPs about the UK’s failure to prepare for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, as he made the case in parliament that Britain could not have stayed in the country 'without American might'

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What could Taliban rule mean for Afghanistan? – video explainer

Afghanistan's government collapsed as the Taliban militant group took control of all of the country's major cities in only nine days, including Kabul, the capital of more than 4 million people.

The Guardian’s senior international correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison explains how the Taliban took control so quickly and what this could mean for the future of the country

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US says ‘we’re not taking their word for it’ on Taliban airport safety promise – video

White House press secretary Jen Psaki says the Biden administration does not have complete faith in the Taliban promise to offer a safe passage to Kabul's international airport after their takeover of the country. 'We're not trusting, we're not taking their word for it,' Psaki says. 'We are watching closely.' Asked what the consequences of breaking the promise could be, Psaki says: 'The consequences are the full weight and force of the United States military, and I think we've made that clear'

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