Afghanistan News Highlights: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani takes shelter in UAE

The Taliban on Wednesday said that the leaders of the movement would show themselves to the world, unlike during the past 20 years, when its leaders have lived largely in secret. It also asked civilians to surrender arms and its members to not celebrate as the victory belongs to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Biden's ratings have dropped to their lowest since his presidency after the Afghanistan crisis. Stay tuned for more updates...

'Islamic scholars to decide role of Afghan women'

A senior Taliban leader has said that the role of women in Afghanistan, including their right to work and education and how they should dress, would ultimately be decided by a council of Islamic scholars.

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Karnataka appoints officer, starts helpline for Kannadigas in Afghanistan

The state government on Wednesday appointed Additional DGP (CID) Umesh Kumar as the nodal officer to coordinate with the Centre to bring back Kannadigas stranded in Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and his family have taken shelter in UAE.

Anas Haqqani meets Afghan politicians in Kabul.

Stampede at gate of airport in Kabul injures 17: NATO official

Seventeen people were injured on Wednesday in a stampede at a gate to the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul, a NATO security official said, as Western countries stepped up the evacuation of their diplomats and others.

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Taliban could be different this time, Britain's Army chief says

The world should give the Taliban the space to form a new government in Afghanistan and may discover that the insurgents cast as militants by the West for decades have become more reasonable, the head of the British army said on Wednesday.

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At least 3 dead following anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad, says witness

At least three people were killed and more than a dozen injured after Taliban militants opened fire during protests against the group in the western Afghan city of Jalalabad, two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters.

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Afghan girls return to school in Herat after Taliban takeover

Girls wearing white hijabs and black tunics crammed into classrooms in the western Afghan city of Herat just days after the Taliban's takeover.

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Anas Haqqani, a member of the Taliban's political office, met with former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul today: TOLOnews.

Former Afghan president Karzai meets Taliban faction chief: Group official

A Taliban commander and senior leader of the Haqqani Network militant group, Anas Haqqani, has met former Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks, a Taliban official said on Wednesday, amid efforts by the Taliban to set up a government.

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Taliban encounter Afghan cities remade in their absence

Ezanullah, one of the thousands of young Taliban fighters from the countryside who rode into Afghanistan's capital over the weekend, had never seen anything like it.

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'India should help ensure peace in Afghanistan'

The CPI(M) and CPI on Wednesday urged the Narendra Modi government to work closely with "major regional powers" to see that Afghanistan remains "peaceful and stable" while accusing it of "blindly following" the United States, resulting in "isolation in the region".

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Afghan embassy in Tajikistan urges Interpol to arrest Ashraf Ghani, Hamdullah Mohib and Fazl Mahmood Fazly over alleged stealing of public funds: Report

'We must face the reality of a change of regime in Afghanistan', says UK PM Boris Johnson

UK PM Boris Johnson calls on UN to start new humanitarian mission in Afghan region

'We will not send people back to Afghanistan', says UK PM Boris Johnson

Anas Haqqani has arrived in Kabul and met with a number of political leaders: Reports

Escorted by Taliban: India's midnight evacuation from Afghanistan

Outside the main iron gate of the Indian embassy in Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters waited -- armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Inside the compound were 150 Indian diplomats and nationals -- growing increasingly nervous as they watched news of the Taliban tightening their grip on the capital, which they took a day earlier without a fight...

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The UK Government announces Resettlement Route for Afghan refugees

In its first year, the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme to welcome up to 5,000 Afghans to the UK who have been forced to flee the country, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long-term, The number is in addition to 5,000 Afghans we expect to relocate to the UK this year under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. New route in line with the Government’s New Plan for Immigration, which prioritises those most in need, the UK government said.

As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, enforcing harsh conditions and rules following their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Under their rule, women had to cover themselves and only leave the house in the company of a male relative. The Taliban also banned girls from attending school, and women from working outside the home. They were also banned from voting.

Women were subject to cruel punishments for disobeying these rules, including being beaten and flogged, and stoned to death if found guilty of adultery. Afghanistan had the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.

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Kabul airport opens to civilian air traffic: Reports quoting CENTCOM statement

Taliban 2.0? The Taliban offer a pledge of reconciliation, vowing no revenge against opponents and to respect women's rights in a "different" rule of Afghanistan from two decades ago

Thousands flee Afghanistan as Taliban take control — See pictures

Tens of thousands of people are trying to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline Islamist rule expected under the Taliban. Evacuation flights from Kabul's airport restarted on August 17 after the chaos of the previous day in which huge crowds mobbed the tarmac. Some people were so desperate to escape that they clung to the a US military plane as it prepared for take-off.

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Britain has managed to remove around 1,000 people a day from Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control of the country, interior minister Priti Patel said

Centre to make all efforts to bring back Indians from Afghanistan: Scindia

Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said the central government will make all efforts, like it did in the 'Vande Bharat Mission', to bring back Indian citizens from Afghanistan, which has witnessed re-emergence of the militant group Taliban. The Vande Bharat Mission was carried out last year to bring back Indians stranded in foreign countries after the suspension of regular international flights following the oubreak of COVID-19 pandemic. “The Indian government will bring its citizens back to their homes from Afghanistan, like we did in the Vande Bharat Mission, through Air India and the Indian Air Force (IAF) planes, whichever way is possible,” Scindia told reporters late Tuesday night in Madhya Pradesh's Shajapur, where he reached as part of his 'Jan Ashirwad Yatra'.

An uncertain future

A passenger aboard a flight of repatriated persons from Afghanistan waves from a window after landing on an RAF Airbus KC2 Voyager aircraft, at RAF Brize Norton, southern England, on August 17, 2021 Credit: AFP

I didn't make any such statement (comparing Taliban with Indian freedom fighters): SP MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq

My statement has been misinterpreted. I'm a citizen of India, not of Afghanistan, so I've no business with what is happening there. I support my govt's policies: SP MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq

Ex-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who fled the country reportedly in Abu Dhabi: Kabul News

Case against Samajwadi Party MP over 'Taliban want to run their own country' remark

A case has been registered against a Samajwadi Party MP who defended the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and equated it with India’s own freedom struggle.

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Is China about to tuck Afghanistan under its belt and road?

China won’t be rushing into Afghanistan any time soon — not to fill the political and security void left by the US and not to expand President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road project.

However decisive the Taliban’s victory looks right now, the country is far too fragile for Beijing to contemplate anything other than a pragmatic diplomatic engagement with a group it has spent decades trying to work with. It may dangle the promise of enhanced economic relations in front of an Islamist insurgent movement looking to cement key regional relationships, but the likelihood of any infrastructure projects materialising in the short-term is remote.

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Taliban allowing 'safe passage' from Kabul in US airlift

The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a US-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden's national security adviser said, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country's new rulers.

Jake Sullivan on Tuesday acknowledged reports that some civilians were encountering resistance - “being turned away or pushed back or even beaten” - as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport.

But he said “very large numbers” were reaching the airport and the problem of the others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose stunningly swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the US evacuation effort into chaos, confusion and violence.

First Lufthansa plane with Afghanistan evacuees lands in Germany

The first Lufthansa plane carrying evacuees from Afghanistan landed in Frankfurt early on Wednesday with about 130 people aboard, the airline said.

The Airbus A340 picked up passengers who had been taken by Bundeswehr flights from the Afghan capital of Kabul to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.

As part of an airlift effort in coordination with the German government, further special flights from Tashkent, Doha or other neighbouring nations in the next few days will evacuate more people from Afghanistan.

Germany, which had the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, wants to airlift thousands of German-Afghan dual nationals, rights activists, lawyers and people who worked with foreign forces.

Taliban members should not celebrate to prove their supremacy, victory belongs to Afghanistan: Official

(Reuters)

Taliban will engage in peaceful dialogue with former govt officials to ensure they feel safe: Taliban official

(Reuters)

The leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban will show themselves to the world, an official of the Islamist movement said on Wednesday, unlike during the past 20 years, when its leaders have lived largely in secret.

"Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders, there will be no shadow of secrecy," the senior Taliban official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

What the Taliban have said so far

Mujahid said the Taliban would soon be establishing a government, but gave little detail of its make-up apart from saying they would "connect with all sides".

"All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z," he said.

"We will not seek revenge."

Asked what the difference between the movement that was ousted 20 years ago and the Taliban of today, he said,"If the question is based on ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference... but if we calculate it based on experience, maturity, and insight, no doubt there are many differences."

"The steps today will be positively different from the past steps," he added.

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India will wait and watch before deciding on engaging with new regime in Afghanistan

India will wait and watch for some time instead of hastily deciding on its approach to the new regime in Afghanistan.

Though New Delhi has evacuated its envoy and diplomats from Kabul on Tuesday, it has not formally announced the closure of the Embassy of India in the capital of Afghanistan, as it would have meant severance of diplomatic relations between the two nations – a decision Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not yet taken.

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Hijab mandatory for women, not Burqa: Taliban

The Taliban gave the first indication on Tuesday since coming to power that they would not make the full burqa compulsory for women as they did when they last ruled Afghanistan.

Under the militants' hardline 1996-2001 rule, girls' schools were closed, women were prevented from travelling and working, and women were forced to wear an all-covering burqa in public.

"The burqa is not the only hijab (headscarf) that (can) be observed, there is different types of hijab not limited to burqa," Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the group's political office in Doha, told Britain's Sky News.

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Biden approval drops to lowest of 7-month presidency after Taliban takeover

President Joe Biden's approval rating dropped by 7 percentage points and hit its lowest level so far as the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed over the weekend https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/how-taliban-engineered-political-collapse-afghanistan-2021-08-17 in an upheaval that sent thousands of civilians and Afghan military allies fleeing for their safety, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The national opinion poll, conducted on Monday, found that 46% of American adults approved of Biden's performance in office, the lowest recorded in weekly polls that started when Biden took office in January.

It is also down from the 53% who felt the same way in a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll that ran on Friday.

Biden's popularity dropped as the Taliban entered the capital, Kabul, wiping away two decades of U.S. military presence that cost nearly 1 trillion taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives.

Kabul airport still crowded with Afghans trying to leave: ToloNews

Afghan students studying in Maharashtra met Maharashtra Minister Aaditya Thackeray today and expressed their concerned about their and their families safety in India & Afghanistan. Thackeray ensured them to help & will convey their demands to centre govt.

The Taliban have pledged not to seek "revenge" against their opponents in Afghanistan in their first press conference since taking power, as the United States said they would hold the insurgents to their promises to respect human rights.

The Taliban announcements came Tuesday after the return to Afghanistan of their co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, crowning the group's astonishing comeback after being ousted in a US-led invasion nearly 20 years ago.

Resettlement programme: UK to welcome thousands of refugees

Britain on Tuesday announced plans to welcome up to 5,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban during the first year of a new resettlement programme that will prioritise women, girls and religious and other minorities.Foreign powers are assessing how to respond to the situation in the country after Islamist Taliban insurrgents rapidly seized control, with many fearing a swift unravelling of women's rights, despite reassurances to the contrary.

Three sniffer dogs, who were a part of the security at the Indian embassy in Afghanistan along with ITBP personnel deployed there, returned from Kabul to India yesterday.

A participant holds up a placard readig 'Help Afghans' during a demonstration near the Chancellery in Berlin on August 17, 2021, to demand the safe passage and airlift out of Afghanistan, where people try flee the country after the Taliban swept back to p

Credit: AFP Photo

US lawmakers to probe Biden administration over Afghanistan

Members of the US Congress, including many of President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats, said on Tuesday they were increasingly frustrated with events in Afghanistan, vowing to investigate what went wrong.

"The events of recent days have been the culmination of a series of mistakes made by Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 20 years," Senator Bob Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

"We are now witnessing the horrifying result of many years of policy and intelligence failures," Menendez said.

US military has evacuated 3,200 people from Afghanistan so far: official

The US military has evacuated more than 3,200 people from Afghanistan so far, including 1,100 on Tuesday alone, a White House official said.

For Afghan women, Taliban stir fears of return to a repressive Past

Two female television broadcasters on Tuesday offered contradictory visions of Afghanistan’s direction. Beheshta Arghand, a newscaster with Tolo News channel, asked a Taliban official about the Taliban’s house-to-house searches in the Afghan capital. The scene of a Taliban official taking questions from a female journalist was part of a broader campaign by the Taliban to present a more moderate face to the world. Hours later, an anchorwoman on state television, Khadija Amin, told a chat room that the Taliban had suspended her indefinitely. The stories reflect the uncertainty Afghan women face as they try to assess what will befall them as the Taliban take control of the country.

(NYT)

Don’t want Afghanistan to be a battlefield: Taliban spokesperson

The Taliban’s leaders Tuesday promised peace at home and urged the world to look past their history of violence and repression. “We don’t want Afghanistan to be a battlefield anymore — from today onward, war is over,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, said in a news conference. Mujahid said the Taliban had declared a blanket amnesty, vowing no reprisals. But much of the world is wary.

Human remains found in landing gear of military flight from Kabul: US Air Force

The USAir Force said on Tuesday that it was investigating the circumstances surrounding human remains that were found in the wheel well of one of its C-17s that flew out of Kabul amid the chaos of the Taliban taking over the Afghan capital.

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Intelligence reports warned Biden of Afghan military collapse

Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Joe Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former US government officials.

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Taliban vows to provide civilians safe passage to Kabul airport: White House

The Taliban has told the United States it will provide safe passage for civilians to reach the airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday.

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