Afghanistan Crisis LIVE: Taliban Issues First Fatwa, Bans Co-Education In Universities
Afghanistan Crisis LIVE, August 21, Saturday: Taliban websites that delivered victorious insurgents' official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages went offline abruptly.
A group of Indian nationals is learnt to have been stopped and taken to an unknown location near the Kabul airport on Saturday for questioning and verification of travel documents, triggering some confusion and concerns in India.
These Indians were learnt to have been released subsequently.
People tracking the developments in Kabul said there were no specific reports of any harm to Indians in Kabul so far.
The Indians were among 150 people who were heading towards the Kabul airport when they were stopped by Taliban fighters, according to Afghan media reports.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK's diplomatic efforts to find a solution in Afghanistan remain ongoing, which leaves open the prospect of working with the Taliban if necessary .
Speaking to the media after an emergency Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBRA) meeting to discuss the crisis in the region on Friday, Johnson said formidable challenges remain around the evacuation of British nationals and supporters from Kabul airport but the situation was getting slightly better .
What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan, working with the Taliban, of course if necessary, will go on and our commitment to Afghanistan is lasting, Johnson said.
Afghanistans military has laid down its weapons, and the Taliban have wasted little time in collecting them, raising concerns about how easily troves of US-made arms, military aircraft and armoured vehicles have fallen into enemy hands and the new capabilities they bring, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Scores of videos have emerged of Taliban fighters rejoicing near abandoned American helicopters, carrying US-supplied M24 sniper rifles and M18 assault weapons, stacking other small arms and materiel in unending piles and driving Humvees and other US-made military trucks.
The Taliban have seized airplanes, tanks and artillery from Afghan outposts and from evacuating US personnel, revealing one of the heavier costs of a troop withdrawal amid a collapse of Afghanistan's government and army.
Taliban officials in Afghanistan's Herat province have ordered the government and private universities that girls will no longer be allowed to sit in the same classes with boys, Khaama News reported.
In a three-hour meeting between university lecturers, owners of private institutions, and the Taliban officials, the latter said that there is no alternative and justification for continuing co-education and must be ended.
Multiple Afghan media outlets report kidnapping by Taliban of persons awaiting evacuation from Kabul. Among them are reported to be Indian citizens. No official confirmation of this, more details awaited.
The situation across Afghanistan remained extremely fluid and bolstered support for the humanitarian response inside Afghanistan was urgently needed, said UN officials.
Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said at a press briefing that while widespread fighting had decreased since the takeover of the country by the Taliban on August 15, the full impact of the evolving situation was not yet clear, reports Xinhua news agency.
The vast majority of Afghans were not able to leave the country through regular channels, Mantoo said, adding that some 200 UNHCR colleagues, both national and international, remained in Afghanistan.
"UNHCR was working with 18 local non-government partners with some 900 staff throughout the country. At present, they were able to access all provinces and working in two-thirds of all districts," she said.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that his country will work with the Taliban "if necessary", as the group has regained control of Afghanistan.
"What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan, working with the Taliban, of course, if necessary, will go on," Johnson told reporters here on Friday.
He said the situation at the Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans gathered in hopes of boarding an evacuation flight, was getting "slightly better" and he saw "stabilisation".
Afghan man deported from Nagpur suspected to have joined Taliban, seen with a rifle in viral pic. Nagpur Police Comm reportedly said, "2 months ago we arrested one Afghan national identified as Noor Mohammad for living in Nagpur without documents and deported him to Afghanistan. Now, we've seen viral pics of a man with a rifle. We don't have any info about what he is doing there & if he is the same person in viral image."
Indian Air Force's C130 Hercules Globemaster aircraft rescued and evacuated 90 Indians who were stranded at Kabul Airport. According to reports, at least 220 Indian are yet to be repatriated from the war-torn Afghanistan.
Taliban websites that delivered the victorious insurgents' official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages went offline abruptly Friday, indicating an effort to try to squelch them.
It is not immediately clear, though, why the sites in the Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, English and Dari languages went offline Friday. They had been shielded by Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based content delivery network and denial-of-service protection provider.
The UN food agency says it has been able to negotiate access with the Taliban to distribute aid in one provincial capital in Afghanistan but hasn't been able to resume food deliveries to three other provincial capitals it supplies.
The World Food Program, headquartered in Rome, has said that some 14 million people are facing severe hunger in the nation of some 39 million. A second drought in three years, combined with fighting, had afflicted Afghanistan even before the Taliban takeover of the country on Sunday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Western countries should not interfere in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, saying they "must stop the irresponsible policy of imposing foreign values from abroad".
He also said he hoped the Taliban would "guarantee the security of locals and foreign diplomats" and that the country would not break apart following the withdrawal of US-led forces, Guardian reported.
"You can't call it a success," Putin said when asked about the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, which was launched in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC. "But it's not in our interests right now to stand on this point and talk about this as a failure. We were interested in the situation in the country being stable."
Background
Afghanistan Crisis LIVE, August 21, Saturday: With Taliban taking over Kabul, a situation of unrest resides in the war-torn country. Severals Afghans took to the streets holding the countrys national flag, which is no longer in use after since Taliban's capture. there is a deepening fear among the country’s religious and ethnic minorities that the gains they made over the past two decades could be lost and that they could again find themselves the target of persecution. Many Hazaras worry that atrocities of the past will be revisited despite assurances from the Taliban leadership that they have changed.
Taliban websites that delivered the victorious insurgents' official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages went offline abruptly Friday, indicating an effort to try to squelch them. It is not immediately clear, though, why the sites in the Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, English and Dari languages went offline Friday. They had been shielded by Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based content delivery network and denial-of-service protection provider.
The UN food agency says it has been able to negotiate access with the Taliban to distribute aid in one provincial capital in Afghanistan but hasn't been able to resume food deliveries to three other provincial capitals it supplies. The World Food Program, headquartered in Rome, has said that some 14 million people are facing severe hunger in the nation of some 39 million. A second drought in three years, combined with fighting, had afflicted Afghanistan even before the Taliban takeover of the country on Sunday.
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