Afghanistan Taliban Conflict Live: Afghanistan Kabul News Today Live, Taliban Afghanistan Latest Update Live

Afghanistan | All commercial flights are suspended at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, reads a statement. The statement calls on the people to avoid crowds at the airport: TOLONews

US President Joe Biden in April announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11 this year, thus bringing to end the country’s longest war, spanning across two decades. Since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban after the September 11, 2001 attacks, America has spent more than USD 1 trillion in fighting and rebuilding in Afghanistan. About 2,400 US soldiers have been killed, along with tens of thousands of Afghan troops, Taliban insurgents and Afghan civilians. AP

U.S. forces fired in the air at Kabul’s airport on Monday to prevent hundreds of civilians running onto the tarmac, a U.S. official said.”The crowd was out of control,” the official told Reuters by phone. “The firing was only done to defuse the chaos.”Hundreds of Afghans have jammed the airport trying to get out of the country after Taliban insurgents entered the capital on Sunday. U.S. troops are in charge at the airport, helping in the evacuation of embassy staff and other civilians. – Reuters

Saudi Arabia says it has evacuated all its diplomats from its embassy in the Afghan capital, and New Zealand’s government is sending a plane to help its people leave the country. Saudi Arabia said all staff were evacuated from the embassy in Kabul on Sunday due to the changing conditions on the ground, joining other countries that have also shuttered their embassies as the Taliban advance on the Afghan capital. New Zealand’s government says its sending a C-130 Hercules military transport plane to Afghanistan to help with the evacuation of 53 New Zealanders and dozens of Afghanis and their immediate families who helped New Zealand troops when they were stationed there. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said they had so far identified 37 Afghanis who had helped, but the number of evacuees would be in the hundreds once dependents and others were included. – AP

In a joint statement, more than 60 countries led by the US said that given the deteriorating security situation, they support and are working to secure and call on all parties to respect and facilitate, the safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave the country. – AP

Govt has told Air India to put two aircraft on standby for emergency evacuations from Kabul. Air India has prepared a set crew for emergency operations from Kabul to New Delhi: Govt Sources – ANI

Air India Kabul bound flight from Delhi will now fly at 12:30 pm, instead of 8:30 pm – ANI

A Taliban spokesman and negotiator said told The Associated Press on Sunday that the militant group is holding talks aimed at forming an ‘open, inclusive Islamic government’ in Afghanistan. Suhail Shaheen spoke to the AP after the Taliban overran most of the country in a matter of days and pushed into the capital, Kabul, as the United States scrambled to withdraw diplomats and other civilians. Earlier, a Taliban official said the group would announce a new government from the presidential palace, but those plans appear to be on hold. Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country Sunday, joining thousands of his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signalling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking the country. The Taliban fanned out across the capital, and an official with the militant group said it would soon announce the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul. AP

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging the Taliban and all other parties to exercise ‘utmost restraint’ in order to protect the lives of Afghans and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Sunday that ‘the United Nations remains determined to contribute to a peaceful settlement, promote the human rights of all Afghans, notably women and girls, and provide life-saving humanitarian assistance and critical support to civilians in need.’ The UN humanitarian office said members of the humanitarian community – both from the UN and non-governmental organisations – remain committed to helping the millions of Afghans needing assistance and are staying in the country despite the ‘highly complex’ security environment. – AP

President Joe Biden and other top US officials were stunned on Sunday by the pace of the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of American forces urgently became a mission to ensure a safe evacuation. The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he was the subject of withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed. Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban while arguing that Americans of all political persuasions have tired of a 20-year war, a conflict that demonstrated the limits of money and military might to force a Western-style democracy on a society not ready or willing to embrace it. – AP

The collapse of Kabul without any resistance to the Taliban will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history, former US President Donald Trump has said. ‘What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary. It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history,’ Trump said in a short statement hours after the Taliban occupied the presidential palace in Kabul and its elected leader Ashraf Ghani fled the country along with his senior officials reportedly to Tajikistan. There was no word from the White House on the developments in Kabul. President Joe Biden, who is spending his weekend in Camp David, held a secure video conference with his top national security advisors, the White House said. Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley described it as a failure of the Biden Administration. – PTI

A State Department official says the American flag is no longer flying at the US Embassy in Kabul amid evacuations from Afghanistan’s capital. The official tells The Associated Press that nearly all embassy personnel have been relocated to the city’s international airport. The official says the flag itself is with embassy personnel, who are among thousands of Americans and others waiting for flights. The official was not authorised to discuss the details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. In a joint statement Sunday night, the State Department and the Pentagon say they are taking steps to secure the airport for safe departures by way of civilian and military flights. The statement says the US security presence will have expanded to nearly 6,000 troops over the next two days and will take over air traffic control. Those leaving include American citizens who have been living in Afghanistan, locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul and their families, and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals. – AP

As the Taliban mass at the gates of Kabul, they are promising a new era of peace in Afghanistan, with amnesty for those they have been battling for two decades and a return to normal life. But Afghans who remember the Taliban’s brutal rule and those who have lived in areas controlled by the Islamic militants in recent years have watched with growing fear as the insurgents have overrun most of the country while international forces withdraw. Government offices, shops and schools are still shuttered in areas recently captured by the Taliban, with many residents either lying low or fleeing to the capital, Kabul. – AP

The United States has said that it would deploy as many as 6,000 of its troops at the Kabul airport to ensure safe departure of its citizens and those from its friends and allies from Afghanistan which has now been taken over by the Taliban, in a sudden an unprecedented collapse of the elected regime led by President Ashraf Ghani. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also made a series of calls to his counterparts of his key allies. India was not one of them. Simultaneously more than 60 countries led by the United States and the European Union issued a joint statement urging those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan to bear responsibility and accountability for the protection of human life and property, and for the immediate restoration of security and civil order. – PTI

The beating blades of US military helicopters whisking American diplomats to Kabul’s airport on Sunday punctuated a frantic rush by thousands of other foreigners and Afghans to flee to safety as well, as a stunningly swift Taliban takeover entered the heart of Afghanistan’s capital. Two weeks from the Biden administration’s planned full military withdrawal, the United States was pouring thousands of fresh troops back into the country temporarily to safeguard what was gearing up to be a large-scale airlift. Shortly before dawn Monday Kabul time, State Department spokesman Ned Price announced the U.S. had completed the evacuation of its embassy in Afghanistan, lowering the American flag. At the same time, the administration announced it was taking over air-traffic control at Kabul’s international airport, to manage the airlifts. – AP