Taliban soldiers in Panjshir province, northeastern of Afghanistan. (AP/File)Afghanistan crisis Highlights: Afghanistan’s acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund has appealed to former officials of past governments to return to the country and assured them “full protection”, saying the period of bloodbath is over and they face a humongous task to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.
“We paid a heavy price for seeing this historic moment in Afghanistan,” Mullah Hasan was quoted as saying by PTI on Wednesday, a day after the hardline Islamic insurgents unveiled an interim Cabinet after seizing power in Kabul.
Earlier today, a US lawmaker sought sanctions against Pakistan for reportedly aiding the Taliban offensive in Panjshir. Congressman Adam Kinzinger said this in a tweet after Fox News report quoted a CENTCOM source saying that the Pakistani military are assisting the Taliban offensive in Panjshir, including 27 helicopters full of Pakistani Special Forces, backed up by Pakistani drone strikes.
Days after announcing the new government, Taliban has reportedly banned all unauthorised demonstrations and women’s sports — women’s cricket specifically. Meanwhile, ex-president Ashraf Ghani apologised to the people for leaving Afghanistan abruptly and denied reports that he left Kabul with millions of dollars in cash from the treasury.
The Taliban government have banned demonstrations that do not have official approval, a day after women faced whips and sticks at a protest held against the appointment of an all-male government in Afghanistan.
A decree issued by the Taliban government’s interior ministry, led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is a UN-designated global terrorist since 2007, states that protestors have to secure permission for demonstrations or face “severe legal consequences”.
Women have been at the forefront of protests in Kabul and other cities of Afghanistan, fearing a repeat of the repressive policies seen during Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule. More details here.
The first international commercial flight since the end of the chaotic Western airlift from Afghanistan last month departed from Kabul airport on Thursday, Qatar’s foreign minister said.
A large group of foreigners were aboard the Doha-bound flight, Al Jazeera television reported. The Qatar Airways plane had arrived in Kabul earlier on Thursday carrying aid, it said. Read the full report here.
Dozens of foreigners, including Americans, have left Kabul on an international commercial flight, marking the first large-scale evacuation since US and NATO forces left Afghanistan late last month. Their departure on Thursday represented a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the US and Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders. More details here.
Afghanistan's Kabul Airport is about 90 per cent ready for operations but its reopening is planned gradually, a Qatari official told Reuters on Thursday. Kabul airport had been closed since the end of the massive US-led airlift of its citizens, other Western nationals and Afghans who helped Western countries.
Afghanistan's acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund has appealed to former officials of past governments to return to the country and assured them "full protection", saying the period of bloodbath is over and they face a humongous task to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.
"We paid a heavy price for seeing this historic moment in Afghanistan," Mullah Hasan was quoted as saying by PTI on Wednesday, a day after the hardline Islamic insurgents unveiled an interim Cabinet after seizing power in Kabul.
As an immediate neighbour of Afghanistan with long standing historical linkages, India has one of the highest stakes in the developments in the war-torn country, Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakashi Lekhi has said, highlighting that the USD 3 billion Indian investment in different welfare projects was aimed for the benefit of the Afghan people.
Lekhi said India's contributions for the people of Afghanistan, having executed development and welfare projects across all of its 34 provinces was all aimed for the benefit of its people.
She noted that under India's Presidency of the Security Council last month, the Council adopted Resolution 2593 which unequivocally underlined that Afghan territory should not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter, train terrorists, or plan or finance terrorist acts. (PTI)
A US lawmaker has sought sanctions against Pakistan for reportedly aiding the Taliban offensive in Panjshir. "If confirmed, not only must we cut off all aid, we must enact sanctions. Pakistan is now showing what they lied about for years, they created and protected the Taliban," Congressman Adam Kinzinger said.
Kinzinger said this in a tweet after Fox News report quoted a CENTCOM source saying that the Pakistani military are assisting the Taliban offensive in Panjshir, including 27 helicopters full of Pakistani Special Forces, backed up by Pakistani drone strikes. (PTI)
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday the al-Qaeda extremist group that used Afghanistan as a staging base to attack United States 20 years ago may attempt to regenerate there following an American withdrawal that has left the Taliban in power.
"That's the nature of the organisation," he told a small group of reporters in Kuwait City at the conclusion of a four-day tour of Persian Gulf states. He said the United States is prepared to prevent an al-Qaeda comeback in Afghanistan that would threaten the United States.
"We put the Taliban on notice that we expect them to not allow that to happen," Austin said, referring to the possibility of al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as a staging base in the future. (AP)
As music knows no barriers, a Durga Puja committee in north Kolkata has decided to get its theme song rendered by two Pakhtoons residing in the city, thousands of miles away from trouble-torn Afghanistan.
As the taking over of Kabul by Taliban hugged headlines, the Aswaninagar Bandhu Mahal Club got in touch with the two Pakhtoons, who sing in their spare time besides their main money lending business, puja committee spokesman Swarup Nag said on Wednesday.
"We wanted to convey the message of fraternity and solidarity to our friends in Afghanistan. We want to convey the message of peaceful co-existence which is the hallmark of our external policy," he said. The theme song, in the 40th year of the popular puja in the Baguiati, Kestopur, Lake Town and Dumdum Park area, will have typical Afghan folk tunes and Pushtu language. (PTI)
Taliban authorities have agreed to let 200 American civilians and third country nationals who remained in Afghanistan after the end of the US evacuation operation to depart on charter flights from Kabul airport, a US official
said.
The Taliban were pressed to allow the departures by US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, said the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.The departures were expected on Thursday.
The official could not say whether these Americans and third country nationals were among people stranded for days in Mazar-i-Sharif because their private charters have not been allowed to depart. (Reuters)
Photos of two journalists detained and tortured by the Taliban have emerged on social media. The journalists were taken away while covering the Kabul protests on Wednesday. The Taliban have now issued a decree to end all protests in the country — unless demonstrators get prior permission, including approval of slogans and banners. (Read more)
The US Department of Homeland Security says about 60,000 people have arrived in the country since August 17 from Afghanistan as part of the evacuation formally known as Operation Allies Welcome.
DHS said in the latest updated released Wednesday that 17% of those arrivals are US citizens and permanent residents who were in Afghanistan when the government there fell to the Taliban. The remaining 83% are a mix of people. They include those with Special Immigrant Visas, for people who worked as interpreters or in some other capacity for the US or NATO. There are also other visa holders as well as applicants for visas who have not yet completed their processing.
The remainder are various types of "vulnerable" Afghans who would be threatened under the Taliban, such as women and human rights advocates. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said a small number of evacuees have been prevented from entering the US through "multi-layered" security vetting but he declines to provide specific numbers of provide details about the cases. (AP)
The interior ministry of the new Taliban government is seeking to end protests in Afghanistan after days of demonstrations that have brought heavy-handed assaults on protesters.
The minister has issued an order to end all protests in the country — unless demonstrators get prior permission, including approval of slogans and banners. It's unlikely the women who have been leading near daily protest demanding their rights from the country's hardline Islamic rulers will be allowed to protest under the new rules.
In the words of the ministry's statement: "It is announced to all citizens not to attempt at the present time to hold any demonstrations under any name whatsoever." (AP)
A DAY after the Taliban announced its cabinet, with with no representation of women and lack of adequate representation of ethnic minorities, Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday issued a statement in the name of the Afghan Foreign Ministry and “condemned” the announcement by the Taliban of its “so-called cabinet” as “illegitimate and unjustifiable”.
There has been no response from New Delhi yet on the Taliban announcement, nor on the Afghan embassy’s statement. The Afghan embassy’s statement clearly distances itself from the new rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, who captured power last month. (Read more)
The evolving situation in Afghanistan and its implications on regional security dominated the conversation at separate meetings that the top Indian leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, held with visiting Russian NSA Nikolay Patrushev and CIA chief William J Burns.
A Russian government statement said that following up on the telephone conversation between Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 24, an “exchange of views took place on the military, political and socio-economic situation in Afghanistan” at Patrushev’s meetings on Wednesday. (Read more)
The Haqqani Network has emerged as the most powerful group in the new Taliban government, with four of the clan nominated as cabinet members.
The Haqqani Network takes its name from the leader of the group, Jalaluddin Haqqani, who first fought the Soviet Army in Afghanistan as a loyal ally of the CIA and the ISI, and then fought the US and NATO forces, while he led a protected existence in North Waziristan, where Pakistan gave him and the entire group safe haven. (Read more)
A lack of clarity on the Taliban's position on women in Afghanistan has generated "incredible fear" across the country, a senior UN official said on Wednesday, warning there were daily reports of curbs on the rights of women.
Alison Davidian, deputy head of UN Women in Afghanistan, said some women were being prevented from leaving home without a male relative, women in some provinces were forced to stop work, protection centers for women fleeing violence had been targeted and safe houses for rights activists were at full capacity.
"The lack of clarity of the Taliban's position on women's rights has generated incredible fear. And this fear is palpable across the country," Davidian, speaking from Kabul, told reporters in New York. (Reuters)
The United States is not in a rush to recognise the new interim government in Afghanistan, the White House said on Wednesday, asserting that it is talks with the Taliban to get American citizens out of the strife-torn country.
'No one in this administration, not the President nor anyone on the national security team, would suggest that the Taliban are respected and valued members of the global community. They have not earned that in any way, and we have never assessed that. This is a caretaker cabinet that does include four former imprisoned Taliban fighters,' White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news conference. (Read more)
In an exclusive interview with SBS News, the deputy head of the Taliban's cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said that sport is not seen as something that is important for women. "I don't think women will be allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play cricket," Wasiq said.
However, the Taliban has allowed men's cricket to continue. Last week, a top official of the Afghan cricket board told The Indian Express that the team’s tour of Australia this year, which will include the first-ever Test between the two countries, has received green signal from the Taliban.
The last member of Afghanistan's Jewish community has left the country.
Zebulon Simentov, who lived in a dilapidated synagogue in Kabul, kept kosher and prayed in Hebrew, endured decades of war as the country's centuries-old Jewish community rapidly dwindled. But the Taliban takeover last month seems to have been the last straw. Read the full report here.
Former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani Wednesday denied allegations that he fled Kabul with million of dollars. In a statement, Ghani said, “These charges are completely and categorically false…Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life, but I believed it was the only way to keep the guns silent and save Kabul and her 6 million citizens.”
Germany's foreign minister has responded skeptically to the Taliban's announcement of an interim government line-up for Afghanistan.
According to AP, the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement that his country is ready to provide humanitarian aid via the United Nations and will continue to speak to the Taliban to secure the departure from Afghanistan of former employees and others.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held "useful discussions" with Russia's Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev on the situation in Afghanistan. Patrushev met Jaishankar after holding wide-ranging talks with NSA Ajit Doval with a focus on possible security threats to the region from the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. (PTI)
Pakistan will host a virtual meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan's neighbours on Wednesday to discuss the latest situation in the war-torn country, PTI reported.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will chair the meeting to be attended by China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to Foreign Office.
In a series of photos and videos, Zaki Daryabi, who identifies himself as the publisher of two Afghan media houses, said that the Taliban detained and later released at five journalists and four others while covering the women's march in Kabul earlier today.
Daryabi shared an image of red welts on a person's lower back. In another video clip, a group on women protesting on the street are dispersed by an alleged Taliban member.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet at the Ramstein US Air Base for talks on Afghanistan on Wednesday.
The two diplomats are first set to talk bilaterally and later hold a virtual meeting with other foreign ministers, the German foreign ministry said in a statement.
Maas praised the close cooperation with the US during the evacuation efforts of international and local Afghans from the country in recent weeks, and said that "in the next phase we want to continue to cooperate and coordinate, especially in regard of the new rulers in Kabul." (AP)
A day after Taliban announced the members of the new government, a video in which the Minister of Education questioning the relevance of higher education has emerged on social media.
In the video clip shared by Said Sulaiman Ashna, Minister Sheikh Molvi Noorullah Munir is seen speaking from what looks like a dias. "This is the Minister of Higher Education of the Taliba - says No Phd degree, master's degree is valuable today. You see that the Mullahs & Taliban that are in the power, have no Phd, MA or even a high school degree, but are the greatest of all," says the user's caption.
Pakistan will host a virtual meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan's neighbours on Wednesday to discuss the latest situation in the war-torn country.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will chair the meeting to be attended by China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to Foreign Office.
The Taliban seized control of war-torn Afghanistan in mid-August, ousting the previous elected leadership which was backed by the West. The Foreign Ministers' meeting on the Afghan issue is taking place at the invitation of Pakistan. (PTI)
Afghanistan cricket chiefs are still awaiting instructions from the country's new Taliban government on the future of the women's game and are not anticipating a decision any time soon, a top cricket official told Reuters.
"So far, we don't have any news from the government," Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) chief executive Hamid Shinwari said in a telephone interview. "Its future will be decided by the new government. We are still in an emergency state in the country. Whenever we get to a normal state, that decision will be made."
The Afghan women's squad was quietly disbanded amid safety concerns a few years after it was formed in 2010 but the ACB revived the team last year and gave contracts to 25 players. The ACB's popular programme for girls has already been paused, Shinwari said, but men's cricket has been allowed to continue as before. (Reuters)
China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday that China is ready to maintain communication with the new government and leader in Afghanistan.
Wang made the comment at a daily briefing in Beijing when asked if China would recognise the new government, whose leaders were named on Tuesday.
China respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, Wang said. (Reuters)
CIA chief William J Burns is in Delhi for consultations with the top Indian leadership, especially in the security and strategic establishment, sources said on Wednesday.
Burns, who is meeting NSA Ajit Doval and top brass in the intelligence and security establishment, is discussing the rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan. He arrived in the national capital on Tuesday, sources said.
Both Indian and American officials are tight-lipped about the visit, but several sources confirmed his visit and agenda. (Read more)
A photo of an Afghan woman facing an armed Taliban man during Tuesday's anti-Pakistan protests in Kabul has emerged as one of the striking images from the citizens' protests and evoked comparisions to a famous photograph taken during the Tiananmen Square protests in China.
The Reuters photograph was shared by Zahra Rahimi who identifies herself as a journalist with Afghan-based news agency TOLOnews.
As the Taliban announced a hardline interim government in Afghanistan, a spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN does not engage in recognition of governments and reiterated that only a negotiated and inclusive settlement will bring sustainable peace to the conflict-torn country.
"The UN Secretariat and the UN doesn't engage in acts of recognition of governments. That is a matter that's done by the member states, not by us," Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said at the daily press briefing on Tuesday as he was asked equations about the Taliban announcing the caretaker government. "From our standpoint, regarding today's announcement, only a negotiated and inclusive settlement will bring sustainable peace to Afghanistan." (PTI)
The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban has affected Ludhiana's sewing machine industry, according to media reports. Exports worth over Rs. 100 crore is likely disrupted by the developments, says president of Sewing Machine Development Club.
The Taliban has appointed Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund as the ‘acting’ Prime Minister in the new Afghan government, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Mullah Abdus Salam being his deputies.
Mullah Hasan is presently head of the Taliban’s powerful decision-making body—Rehbari Shura or leadership council— which serves much like a government Cabinet running all the group’s affairs subject to the approval of the top leader.
The supreme leader, Maulvi Haibatullah Akhundzada, himself proposed Mullah Hasan’s name to head the government, adding that the issues within ranks of the Taliban regarding the formation of the government have been resolved. (Read more)
Two weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to form a permanent bilateral channel for consultations on Afghanistan, Russia’s National Security Advisor Nikolay Patrushev is visiting India for “high-level” discussions.
Besides his counterpart Ajit Doval, Patrushev is expected to meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the Prime Minister. In April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Delhi but did not meet the Prime Minister.
At South Block, this visit is being seen as a signal from Moscow, which has emerged as a key player in the Afghanistan situation after the Taliban captured power and the US completed a chaotic exit. (Read more)
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was certain China would try to work out an arrangement with the Taliban after the Islamic insurgents seized power in Afghanistan on Aug. 15.
Asked if he was worried that China would fund the group, which is sanctioned under US law, Biden told reporters, "China has a real problem with the Taliban. So they're going to try to work out some arrangement with the Taliban, I'm sure. As does Pakistan, as does Russia, as does Iran. They're all trying to figure out what do they do now."
The United States and its Group of Seven allies have agreed to coordinate their response to the Taliban, and Washington has blocked the Taliban's access to Afghanistan's reserves, most of which are held by the New York Federal Reserve, to ensure they live up to their pledges to respect women's rights and international law. But experts say much of that economic leverage will be lost if China, Russia or other countries provide funds to the Taliban. (Read more)
Top American lawmakers from the opposition Republican Party on Tuesday hit out at the Taliban over their announcement of an interim government in Afghanistan that includes a specially designated global terrorist.
"Don't be fooled. There is nothing more moderate about the revived Taliban government. This is a government of terrorists, by the terrorists, and for the terrorists," said the Republican Study Committee, which is the largest conservative caucus in the House of Representatives and chaired by Congressman Jim Banks.
"The Taliban's new cabinet comprises former Guantanamo Bay detainees, designated terrorists, and other individuals closely tied to foreign terror groups like Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network," Congressman Tim Burchett said. (PTI)