Afghanistan News highlights: Taliban said to be waiting until after August 31 US withdrawal date

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday Britain would work with the Taliban if necessary after the militants capture of Afghanistan, and defended his foreign minister who has come under fire for his handling of the situation.

. Afghanistan is by far the world's biggest producer of heroin, supplying between 80-90 per cent of global output, making the drugs policies of the new Taliban-led government of crucial importance.

. In line with its historical ties with Afghan people, India will prioritise granting visas to civil society members, opinion makers, women activists, students and NGO workers from Afghanistan in view of the current situation in the country, people familiar with the development said on Friday.

. President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that other countries should not impose their own values on Afghanistan and that the reality was that the Taliban had taken control of most of the country.

. The Taliban are going house-to-house searching for opponents and their families, according to an intelligence document for the UN, that deepened fears Friday Afghanistan's new rulers were reneging on pledges of tolerance.

After routing government forces and taking over Kabul on Sunday to end two decades of war, the hardline Islamist movement's leaders have repeatedly vowed a complete amnesty as part of a well-crafted PR blitz.

Women have also been assured their rights will be respected, and that the Taliban will be "positively different" from their brutal 1996-2001 rule.

But with thousands of people still trying to flee the capital, the report for the United Nations confirmed the fears of many.

(AFP)

. NATO's priority is to get people out of Kabul and keep the airport running, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday as the alliance's foreign ministers met for a virtual crisis meeting to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

"The situation remains difficult and unpredictable," Stoltenberg told reporters. "The main challenge we face is ensuring that people reach and enter Kabul airport."

(Reuters)

. As soon as the Taliban neared the city of Kabul, residents all around feared for their safety and their lives.

. The Afghan national cricket team were feeling "spirited" after resuming training in the capital this week, just days after the Taliban seized control of the country, the head of the cricket board said Friday.

. (AP)

. In contrast to Taliban leaders claiming a new era of amnesty and peace, a statue of Shiite militia leader Abdul Ali Mazari was vandalised and blown up by the militants in Bamiyan which is the unofficial capital of the Hazara ethnic group.

. The United States says it evacuated approximately 3,000 people from Kabul via military transport aircraft on August 19.

. An Afghan official familiar with talks with the Taliban says the group does not plan to make any decisions or announcements about the upcoming government until after the August 31 US withdrawal date passes.

The official, who is not authorised to give information to the media and thus spoke anonymously, says Taliban lead negotiator Anas Haqqani has told his ex-government interlocuters that the insurgent movement has a deal with the US “to do nothing” until after the final withdrawal date passes.

(AP)

. The Panjshir Valley north of Afghanistan's capital Kabul is the final major centre of resistance to the Taliban, but analysts say the fighters gathered there will struggle if the Islamist hardliners launch a full-scale attack.

Surrounded by the high peaks of the Hindu Kush north of Kabul, the Panjshir has long had a reputation as a bastion of resistance -- legendary military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud successfully defended it during the Soviet-Afghan War and the civil war with the Taliban up to his death in 2001.

(AFP)

. A video of Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Ramratan Payal who told a journalist to "go to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan" after being questioned over the rising petrol and diesel prices is doing rounds on social media.

. Taliban fighters tortured and killed members of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan after recently overrunning their village, Amnesty International said, fuelling fears that they will again impose a brutal rule, even as they urged imams to push a message of unity at the first gathering for Friday prayers since the capital was seized.

. The Vatican's newspaper is calling on the international community to welcome Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban, expressing incredulousness “that before deciding to abandon the country no one thought through such a foreseeable scenario or did anything to avoid it.”

(AP)

. Taliban fighters hunting a journalist from Deutsche Welle have shot dead one member of his family and severely injured another, the German public broadcaster said, adding that three more of its journalists had had their homes raided.

The Islamist militant movement had promised it would allow free media - banned when it was last in power from 1996 to 2001 - when it gave its first news conference on Tuesday since capturing the capital Kabul.

(Reuters)

. A handout picture made available by the Iranian Red Crescent on August 19, 2021, shows an Afghan man at the Iran-Afghanistan border between Afghanistan and the southeastern Iranian Sistan and Baluchestan province, as Afghan refugees try to enter the Islamic republic following the takeover of their country by the Taliban earlier this week. Credit: AFP Photo

. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday said Pakistan is determined to play a "positive role" in Afghanistan as he appealed to the Taliban insurgents and former rulers of the war-ravaged country to formulate an all-inclusive political government after mutual consultations.

(PTI)

. Amnesty International says the Taliban were responsible for the torture and killing of several members of Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic minority last month.

The rights group said Friday that its researchers in Afghanistan spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine men in the village of Mundarakht on July 4-6. It said six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death.

(AP)

. An Afghan refugee (L) takes a selfie while his friends unfurl their country's flag at a refugee camp in Bekasi, West Java on August 20, 2021, to show their identity despite not being willing to return to their country, especially after the Taliban took power from the government of President Ashraf Ghani. Credit: AFP Photo

. An Afghan national, who was deported to his country from Nagpur in June this year after he was found staying here illegally, has apparently joined the Taliban and his picture holding a rifle has surfaced on social media, a senior police official said on Friday. The Taliban has seized power in Afghanistan as it swept into capital Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. "The man, Noor Mohammad Ajiz Mohammad, 30, was found staying in Nagpur since the last 10 years illegally. He was living in a rented place in Dighori area of the city. Acting on a tip-off, the police had started keeping a watch on his activities. He was finally nabbed and deported to Afghanistan on June 23," he said. "After his deportation, he seems to have joined the Taliban and his photo holding a gun has emerged on social media," he added. During the probe earlier, police had found that he had come to Nagpur in 2010 on a six-month tourist visa. Later, he had applied to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) seeking a refugee status for himself, but his application was rejected. His appeal was also turned down by the UNHRC. Since then, he stayed in Nagpur illegally, the official said. Another police official said that Noor Mohammad's original name is Abdul Haque and his brother was working with the Taliban.

. Pakistan's state-run airline has resumed special flights for Kabul, in order to evacuate Pakistanis and foreigners stranded in Afghanistan.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet said Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will send its two planes to the Afghan capital on Friday to evacuate 350 passengers.

Chaudhry says Pakistan's interior ministry is also facilitating the evacuation of Pakistanis and foreigners from Afghanistan through border crossings.

. The combined effects of war and drought linked to global warming have put one-third of Afghanistan's population -- 14 million people -- at risk of severe or acute hunger, the UN World Food Programme warned.

The dire assessment comes as the country faces an uncertain future after the Taliban routed the government to take power over the weekend.

"2021 is an extraordinarily difficult year for Afghanistan," WFP representative and country director Mary-Ellen McGroarty told AFP in a telephone interview from Kabul.

Warning of a "horrendous humanitarian crisis unfolding", McGroarty said she intended to remain in the South Asian nation with the WFP "to deliver the much needed humanitarian response that is now required".

The war-torn country is facing its second severe drought in three years, on top of the fighting and displacement of people, she said.

. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday that most Afghans are unable to leave their homeland and that those who may be in danger "have no clear way out".

Spokesperson Shabia Mantoo reiterated its call to neighbouring countries to keep their borders open in light to allow people to seek asylum in light of what she called the "evolving crisis".

"UNHCR remains concerned about the risk of human rights violations against civilians in this evolving context, including women and girls," she told a Geneva news briefing.

. The Taliban have searched the closed Indian Consulates in Kandahar and Herat two days ago and the reportedly took some documents from the two missions, sources in the security set-up said.

According to sources, the insurgents broke into the Consulate buildings and also took parked vehicles.

. The request was conveyed informally by the Taliban leader, who is part of the leadership of the group’s political office at Doha in Qatar, Hindustan Times reports .

. Credit: AFP Photo

. Thousands of people, desperate to flee the country, were still thronging the airport, the official who declined to be identified told Reuters, even though the Taliban have urged people without legal travel documents to go home.

The Taliban urged unity ahead of Friday prayers, the first since they seized power, calling on imams to persuade people not to leave Afghanistan amid the chaos at the airport, protests and reports of violence.

. For hours, they waited on the tarmac in the relentless heat, children and suitcases and strollers in tow, hoping for a flight to freedom that would not come. More than 200 Afghans from all walks of life — cooks, gardeners, translators, drivers, journalists — gathered on the runway of the Kabul airport, seeking escape from a country whose government had collapsed with shocking speed.

It would be several long days until some members of the group were able to secure passage on Thursday out of Afghanistan — an exfiltration that came after a global rescue effort stretching from American newsrooms to the halls of the Pentagon to the emir’s palace in Doha, Qatar.

The group’s ordeal was one of many that played out over the past week in Afghanistan, where citizens who worked side by side with Western journalists for years — helping to inform the world about the travails of their nation — now fear for their safety and that of their families under the Taliban. Media outlets from around the world have called on high-level diplomats and on-the-ground fixers to help their employees escape a situation that none expected to unfold so brutally, so quickly.

. In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Shaheen expressed pleas for help in terms of restoring various sectors in Afghanistan .

. The main challenge for travel to and from Afghanistan is the operational status of the Kabul airport.

On Thursday, Jaishankar said that India is working with international partners, principally the US, in bringing stranded Indian nationals back home from Afghanistan.

. The Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with US and NATO forces, a confidential United Nations document says, despite the militants vowing no revenge against opponents.

The report — provided by the UN's threat-assessment consultants and seen by AFP — says the group has "priority lists" of individuals it wants to arrest.

. Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him, the German public broadcaster said.

The militants were conducting a house-to-house search for the journalist, who now works in Germany, DW said Thursday.

. Taliban visited closed Indian consulates in Kandahar, Herat on Wednesday, searched for papers: NDTV

. India is working with international partners, principally the US, in bringing stranded Indian nationals back home from strife-torn Afghanistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said here on Thursday.

Jaishankar said this while addressing reporters at the UN Security Council stake-out after chairing the Security Council briefing on the 'Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts’, held under India’s current Presidency of the Council.

. Following recommendations from activists, journalists and civil society groups, the company said users can now shield their posts from people they don't know.

Also, users of Facebook-owned Instagram in Afghanistan will receive notifications informing them of methods to protect their accounts.

"We're working closely with our counterparts in industry, civil society and government to provide whatever support we can to help protect people," tweeted Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook's security policy.

. President Joe Biden, facing intense criticism over the chaotic push to get Americans and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan, will speak about the evacuation effort Friday afternoon.

The remarks, planned for 1 p.m., come after days of tumult in and around Hamid Karzai International Airport since the Taliban took Kabul, the Afghan capital. The United States has struggled to quickly process visas for evacuees, and images of Afghans clinging to departing US military aircraft have circulated around the world.

As of Thursday afternoon, the US military had evacuated 7,000 Americans, Afghans and others since the Afghan government began to collapse Saturday, well short of the 5,000 to 9,000 passengers a day that the military will be able to fly out once the evacuation process is at full throttle, officials said.

. Experts are saying that Al Qaeda & Daesh, have reached some areas in Afghanistan. ISI is an enemy of India. You must remember that ISI controls the Taliban and uses it like a puppet: AIMIM Asaduddin Owaisi

. An Afghan footballer who played for the national youth team fell to his death after trying to cling to a US plane airlifting people out of Taliban-controlled Kabul, a sports federation said Thursday.

The General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports of Afghanistan, a government institution that worked with sporting groups, confirmed the death of Zaki Anwari in the mayhem that erupted at the airport in the capital this week.

. Human rights groups have voiced concerns that the Taliban could use online platforms to track Afghans' digital histories or social connections. Amnesty International said this week that thousands of Afghans, including academics, journalists and human rights defenders, were at serious risk of Taliban reprisals.

. China has played a constructive role in promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and is welcome to contribute to the rebuilding of the country, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Chinese state media.

. The United States struggled Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an August 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be airlifted from the chaotic country.

. About two dozen USdiplomats in Afghanistan sent an internal cable last month warning Secretary of State Antony Blinken of the potential fall of Kabul to the Taliban as UStroops withdrew from the country, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

. Columns of Afghan soldiers in armored vehicles and pickup trucks sped through the desert to reach Iran. Military pilots flew low and fast to the safety of Uzbekistan’s mountains.

. India on Thursday refrained from directly criticising the Taliban, but conveyed concerns over heightened activities of its ally, Haqqani Network, which sent hundreds of gun-toting militants from Pakistan to Afghanistan over the past few weeks.

Afghanistan News highlights: Taliban said to be waiting until after August 31 US withdrawal date

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