According to an interior ministry spokesman, Taliban militants invaded Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, on Sunday, while the US embassy in Kabul was evacuated by helicopter. The senior officer stated that the Taliban were approaching from “all sides,” but would not elaborate.
According to a tweet from the Afghan Presidential palace account, the fire was heard in several locations throughout Kabul. Still, security forces, working with foreign partners, held control of the city. President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan has announced his resignation. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the senior Taliban leader, is expected to lead the next Afghan government.
According to US authorities, the diplomats were transported to the airport from the embassy in the fortified Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood. After the Taliban’s rapid advances brought the Islamist organization near Kabul in a matter of days, more American forces were dispatched to assist in the evacuations.
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According to a US intelligence estimate released last week, Kabul was supposed to hold out for at least three months. A US official claimed that “core” US team members were working from the Kabul airport. In contrast, a NATO official indicated that many EU personnel had relocated to a safer, unknown location in the capital. According to a Taliban official, the organization did not want fatalities when it took control, but it had not yet proclaimed a truce.
Earlier on Sunday, the militants took control of one of the key routes into landlocked Afghanistan by capturing the eastern city of Jalalabad without a struggle. They also gained control of the neighboring Torkham border station with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport as the only remaining government-controlled exit point from Afghanistan.
According to a video released by the Taliban, people cheered and shouted Allahu Akbar – God is greatest – as a convoy of pick-up trucks approached the city with warriors waving machine guns and the white Taliban flag. The Taliban campaign escalated when US-led forces evacuated most of its remaining soldiers in the previous month, as the Afghan military’s defenses seemed to crumble.
President Joe Biden authorized the deployment of 5,000 US soldiers on Saturday to assist with residents’ evacuation and ensure an “orderly and safe” military retreat. This includes 1,000 freshly approved troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, according to a US defense official. In a statement late Saturday, the Taliban claimed that its quick victories demonstrated that Afghans widely welcomed it and that Afghans and foreigners would be secure.
The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, as it is known, “will, as always, defend their lives, property, and honour, and provide a calm and secure environment for its loving country,” it claimed, adding that diplomats and humanitarian workers will have no issues. In recent days, Afghans have left the regions for Kabul, fearing a return to harsh Islamist rule.
Early Sunday, families and refugees from Taliban-controlled areas were spotted offloading things from cabs outside embassy gates while the city’s centre was crowded with people stocking up on supplies. On Saturday night, hundreds of people slept hunched in tents or the open in the town, beside roadsides or in car parks, according to a local. He remarked, “You can feel the dread on their faces.”
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Biden stated that it is up to the Afghan troops to maintain control of their region. Qatar, which has hosted fruitless peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, claimed it had encouraged the militants to put down their weapons. Ghani has shown no signs of agreeing to the Taliban’s demand to quit as a condition of any truce.
