Afghanistan News highlights: Taliban to ask Qatar for technical assistance in operating Kabul airport

The Taliban will ask Qatar for technical assistance in operating Kabul airport, Qatari based Al Jazeera news channel reported on Friday citing a source in the Islamist movement.

The Taliban have asked Turkey for technical help to run the airport after next Tuesday's deadline for all foreign military forces to pull out ofAfghanistan, an ultimatum they say applies equally to Turkish troops.

Earlier today, two officials told Reuters Turkey will not help run the airport after NATO's withdrawal unless the movement agrees to a Turkish security presence, after deadly attacks outside the airport highlighted the perils of any such mission. (Reuters)

. The Taliban have asked all women healthcare workers to return to work, a spokesman said on Friday amid mounting pressure on public services that has risen as many trained and educated Afghans have fled the country.

. Two British nationals and the child of a third British national were killed in Thursday's attack at Kabul airport, British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Friday.

"These were innocent people and it is a tragedy that as they sought to bring their loved ones to safety in the UK they were murdered by cowardly terrorists," Raab said in a statement. (Reuters)

. Only one suicide bomber carried out the deadly attack at the Kabul airport, the Pentagon said Friday, correcting its earlier assessment that there were two bombers and two separate explosions.

. The Pentagon said Friday the evacuation of tens of thousands of people fromAfghanistanstill faces more possible attacks like the bombing that killed scores of people outside the Kabul airport.

"We still believe there are credible threats... specific, credible threats," said US military spokesman John Kirby. (AFP)

. Switzerland has wound up its evacuations fromAfghanistanafter repatriating 387 people over two weeks with the help of the German military, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

There were still 11 Swiss nationals there -- some working for international organisations -- with whom the ministry remained in contact, it added in a statement. (Reuters)

. The Taliban wants good ties with all countries, including India, a top official of the militant group has said as he vowed not to allow Afghan soil to be used against any other country.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid also said that the group, which now rulesAfghanistan, considers India as an important part of the region.

"We desire good ties with all countries, including India, which is an important part of the region. Our desire is that India devise its policy as per the interests of Afghan people," Mujahid was quoted as saying by Pakistan's ARY News channel on Wednesday. (PTI)

. After fighting each other for 20 years, the USand Taliban are suddenly finding their interests aligned against a common enemy — but their own bloody history stands in the way of eliminating the threat.

. The United NationsSecurityCouncilon Friday condemned a deadly attack at Kabul's airport in Afghanistan as "especially abhorrent" for targeting civilians trying to flee the country after the Taliban came to power and people helping with the evacuation.

The 15-membercouncilagreed on the statement after a reference to the Taliban - stressing that the Islamist group should not support "terrorists operating on the territory of any country" - was removed at the request of China, diplomats said. (Reuters)

. Chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport may be masking a greater worry for the West: Unintended export of Islamist terrorists out of Afghanistan in the garb of evacuees.

There is growing concern among the western allies that Islamist terrorists may have successfully infiltrated the thousands of Afghans and other foreigners, and some of them may have actually boarded planes for Europe and the US.

. The French foreign ministry has had operational contacts with representatives of the Taliban in recent days in Kabul and in Doha in order to facilitate its ongoing evacuations from Kabul, a foreign ministry source said on Friday. (Reuters)

. The number of Afghans killed in a suicide bomb attack on Kabul airport on Thursday has risen to 79, a hospital official told Reuters on Friday.

More than 120 people were wounded, some were still in hospital but many had returned home, the official said. (Reuters)

. Medical staff at Kabul's Emergency Hospital worked through the night into Friday treating casualties from the twin blasts that tore through crowds waiting outside the airport. They are fearful about what comes next.

At least 85 people were killed in the attack, claimed by Islamic State in a terrifying return of suicide bombings that were a regular part of life before the Taliban's conquest of the city less than two weeks ago.

"Everybody is concerned at this moment in Kabul, nobody knows what to expect in the coming hours," said Rossella Miccio, president of the Italian aid group that runs the hospital. (Reuters)

. A diplomatic source said the one day event would likely be held before Sept. 20, with officials still working on an agenda. Further details are expected to be given next week. (Reuters)

. The United Nations said Friday it was bracing for a possible exodus fromAfghanistanof up to half a million more refugees by the end of 2021.

"We are preparing for around 500,000 new refugees in the region. This is a worst-case scenario," Kelly Clements, the deputy high commissioner of the UN refugee agency, told reporters. (AFP)

. In his first comments on Kashmir, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid has said that Pakistan and India should sit together to resolve all their outstanding issues because both are neighbours and their interests are linked to each other.

. The Taliban has asked Turkey to operate Kabul airport but no decision has been made yet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.

. Afghanistan’s privately owned Kam Air has sent several of its planes to neighbouring Iran with no passengers aboard, an Iranian official said on Thursday, to keep them safe amid the chaos of evacuations at Kabul airport.

"The owners of Afganistan's Kam Air requested to move a number of their passenger planes to Iranian airports following the intensified fights and tensions in Kabul airport," state media quoted Civil Aviation Organisation spokesman Mohammad Hassan Zibakhsh as saying. (Reuters)

. China on Friday condemned the deadly attacks by Islamic State suicide bombers outside Kabul airport, saying Afghanistan still faces a "complex and severe" security situation as the United States withdraws.

Two blasts killed at least 85 people including 13 US soldiers near the airport on Thursday, ripping through crowds desperate to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

. Evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed with new urgency on Friday, a day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover and killed more than 100.

The US says further attempted attacks are expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America's longest war.

As the call to prayer echoed through Kabul with the whine of departing planes, the anxious crowd outside the airport was as large as ever.

. Britain said Friday that it plans to complete its airlifts out of Afghanistan "in a matter of hours" as the frenzied evacuation effort out of Kabul airport draws to a close.

"We will process those people that we have brought with us, the 1,000 people approximately inside the airfield now," British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News.

"And we will seek a way to continue to find a few people in the crowd, where we can, but overall the main processing has now closed and we have a matter of hours."

. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey has held its first talks with the Taliban in Kabul, adding that Ankara was still assessing the Islamist group's offer to run the Afghan capital's airport. "We have held our first talks with the Taliban, which lasted 3.5 hours," Erdogan told reporters. "If necessary, we will have the opportunity to hold such talks again." (AFP)

. Evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed with new urgency on Friday, a day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover. The US says further attempted attacks are expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America's longest war. (AP)

. Britain said Friday that it plans to complete its evacuations out of Afghanistan "in a matter of hours". "We will process those people that we have brought with us, the 1,000 people approximately inside the airfield now," British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News. "And we will seek a way to continue to find a few people in the crowd, where we can, but overall the main processing has now closed and we have a matter of hours." (AFP)

. Here are some of the deadliest days for US troops in Afghanistan:

Aug 26, 2021: Two suicide bombers and gunmen attack crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul's airport in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. The attacks kill at least 60 Afghans and 13 US troops.

Dec 21, 2015: A suicide attacker rams an explosives-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol, killing six American troops. The soldiers were targeted as they moved through a village near Bagram Airfield.

. Hundreds of Afghan families who have been camping in searing heat at a Kabul park after the Taliban overran their provinces begged for food and shelter on Thursday, the most visible face of a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the war-torn country. The Taliban's swift takeover of Afghanistan this month, culminating in the capture of Kabul on Aug. 15, has thrown the country into turmoil. (Reuters)

. Islamic State (ISIS), an enemy of the Taliban as well as the West, said one of its suicide bombers targeted "translators and collaborators with the American army". US officials also blamed the group and vowed retribution. Read more

. In the bloody aftermath of two deadly suicide bombings near Kabul airport on Thursday, top US military veterans are warning of "nightmare" scenarios if US forces delay their exit from Afghanistan beyond August 31.

. Taliban leaders should investigate the Islamic State network in Kabul, they allowed thousands of prisoners to walk out of jails in recent weeks, security is their responsibility, saysNATO diplomat.

. FIFA said it is negotiating the "extremely challenging" evacuation of football players and other athletes from Afghanistan after the Taliban's takeover of power.

Islamic State suicide bombers killed scores of civilians and at least 13 US troops on Thursday, striking the Kabul airport where thousands of people have been trying to flee in the chaos after the takeover.

Last week, Afghan national team football player Zaki Anwari died in a fall from a US plane

. Australia has stopped evacuation flights from Afghanistan after Islamic State suicide bombers killed scores of civilians and at least 13 USmilitary personnel in attacks outside the airport in Kabul, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday. Morrison said Australia's military personnel had been evacuated from Kabul just hours before the attacks, and with security so precarious it was no longer safe to continue evacuations.

"Our plan now moves into its post evacuation stage and that involves ensuring the process of returning, through our official humanitarian program," Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

. At least 28 members of the Taliban were among the people killed in explosions overnight outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban official told Reuters on Friday.

"We have lost more people than the Americans," said the official, who declined to be identified.

. Reuters

. The evacuation of civilians from Kabul has been accelerated after overnight attacks near the airport, a Western security official stationed at the airport told Reuters on Friday.

Flights were taking off regularly, said the official, who declined to be identified.

. The global jihadist community has had a mixed reaction to the Taliban’s remarkable sweep to power in Afghanistan.

. The 13 US military troops killed in the bombing attack on Kabul airport Thursday amounted to the worst single-day loss for the Pentagon in Afghanistan since 2011.

The US Defense Department said 13 were killed after two suicide bombers deployed by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State group detonated their bombs by a key gate into the airport and at a nearby hotel used for staging evacuees.

The initial toll was 12, which increased when an additional service member died from his wounds.

The two-decade war has cost 1,909 US military lives in combat. The heaviest losses came on August 6, 2011, when insurgents shot down a Chinook transport on a nighttime mission in Wardak province southwest of Kabul.

. More than 100,000 people from Afghanistan have been evacuated since August 14, the eve of the Taliban's return to power, the White House said Thursday.

"Since August 14, the US has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 100,100 people," the White House said in a statement issued hours after Islamic State suicide bombers killed dozens, including 13 US troops, as they attacked crowds gathered outside Kabul airport hoping to flee.

. The bombs that killed US service members and Afghans in the desperate Kabul evacuation inflicted another casualty on the other side of the world -- Joe Biden's presidency.

Biden took office promising calm at home and respect for the United States abroad in the wake of the traumatic Donald Trump years.

On Thursday, the deadly attack at Kabul's airport left him with a mountain to climb if he's to persuade the nation and America's partners that either goal remains achievable.

. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have postponed their White House meeting as Biden focused his attention on dealing with the aftermath of deadly explosions near the Kabul airport that targeted US troops and Afghans seeking to flee their country after the Taliban takeover. - AP.

. A large explosion was heard in Kabul late on Thursday as the US military destroyed ammunition, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday.

Two witnesses in an area some 3-4 kilometres from the airport said earlier they had heard a huge explosion, hours after an Islamic State suicide attack killed dozens of people trying to board evacuation flights. - Reuters.

. Former US president Donald Trump, who has sharply criticized his successor Joe Biden's handling of the crisis in Afghanistan, called Thursday's suicide attacks in Kabul a "tragedy" and said the bombings "should never have been allowed to happen."

"Melania and I send our deepest condolences to the families of our brilliant and brave Service Members whose duty to the USA meant so much to them. Our thoughts are also with the families of the innocent civilians who died today in the savage Kabul attack," Trump said in a statement. - AFP.

. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide blast at the airport in Kabul on Thursday during the US-led evacuation from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the SITE monitoring agency said.

Afghanistan News highlights: Taliban to ask Qatar for technical assistance in operating Kabul airport

Taliban to ask for technical assistance from Qatar in operating Kabul airport: Al Jazeera report

Taliban say Afghan women health service staff should go back to work

Two Britons killed in Thursday's Kabul attack, UK foreign minister says

Only one suicide bomber in Kabul attack: Pentagon

Kabul airlift still faces 'specific, credible threats': Pentagon

Follow us on :

Follow Us