Afghanistan - 1st September 2021

Summary for Wednesday, 1st September

Here are the main developments in the past 24 hours:

• US President Joe Biden defends withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, calling it a choice between "leaving or escalating"
  
• The evacuation efforts was an "extraordinary success", he says
  
• Some 123,000 people were airlifted by the US and its allies before the 31 August deadline, Washington says
  
• Taliban fighters have been seen posing in abandoned US aircraft at Kabul airport after the final US flight left
  
• The UK is in talks with the Taliban to secure safe passage for a number of British nationals and Afghans who remain there
  

Biden defends pulling US troops out

President Joe Biden on Tuesday defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan - a move which opened the way for Taliban militants to return to power.
Staying longer was not an option, Biden said in an address to the nation, a day after the end of a 20-year US presence in Afghanistan.
He praised troops for organising an airlift of more than 120,000 people wishing to flee the Taliban regime.
The Islamist militants have been celebrating their victory.

9:29

UK and Taliban in talks over further evacuations

The UK is in talks with the Taliban to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan for a number of British nationals and Afghans who remain there.
The talks, involving UK officials and "senior" Taliban members, are taking place in Doha, Qatar, No 10 said.
It comes after a Taliban pledge to allow further departures.
Read our full story here

'Struggle to survive or race to escape' on streets of Kabul

Large crowds were jostling outside the banks in Kabul and queues formed near foreign embassies on Thursday, a day after the last US troops left Afghanistan.
But the BBC's Lyse Doucet says that for the majority of Afghanistan's 40 million people, life feels no different from recent days, despite the end of the 20-year foreign military presence.

Analysis: Opening wallets, but not borders

Nick Beake - Brussels Correspondent
Members of the European Union met in Brussels to discuss proposals to help Afghans who've fled the Taliban. They're keen to avoid a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis.
As Syria crumbled and refugees looked to Europe for sanctuary, the EU's most powerful politician, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, declared: “We can do this.”
Six years on, as hundreds of thousands of Afghans now contemplate a new life abroad – the message from Europe is more like: “We can pay for someone else to do this."
It's a case of opening wallets, not borders. Mainstream politicians are frightened of another surge in support for anti-migrant parties.
Germany goes to the polls in less than a month and on Tuesday its interior minister, meeting his EU counterparts, said the bloc should avoid setting a target for the number of Afghans to be resettled, arguing it would serve as a magnet.
But the EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said the union had to act to avoid a humanitarian crisis.
Brussels is now drafting proposals for an EU package for Afghanistan’s neighbours to accept refugees.
This could include funding for Pakistan, and potentially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
There could be tense discussions about whether Iran, currently under international sanctions, also receives EU money. The plan has shades of the financial deal agreed with Turkey five years ago, which encouraged the country to take in refugees rather than allowing them to travel on to Europe.

Taliban make promises on new government but some Afghans wary

While the Taliban celebrate a new era of Afghanistan - many people are in hiding and fear

The Taliban have said Afghanistan's new government will be announced in a day or two.
The deputy head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, Sher Abbas Stanekzai, told BBC Pashto that those who had served in prior cabinets in the past 20 years would not be included.
He also said women would have a role - but not in very high positions such as ministers.
Sher Abbas Stanekzai was speaking after Taliban leaders ended three days of talks in the Afghan city of Kandahar.
While the Taliban celebrate a new era in Afghanistan, many people are in hiding and fear.
They say the words from the Taliban don’t reflect the realities on the ground - with reports of critics being attacked, and women and girls losing basic rights, the BBC's South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan says.

Female Afghan MP 'fears being brutalised'

Today Programme - BBC Radio 4
Conservative MP Nus Ghani is among MPs trying to help Afghans who need to leave the country. She spoke to the BBC about one female MP who fears for her life after speaking out against the Taliban in the past:
"She's been told she will be killed if the Taliban get hold of her. They've already raided her home, they've already hung her dog," Ms Ghani said.
"She's in her third safe place. They're desperately running out of food and money. She was a university teacher when the Taliban were last there. She was already brutalised by them once. She survived and went back to Afghanistan and helped rebuild the country.
"She's staying in a safe place separate from her children because she's anxious that if the Taliban come for her, then maybe her children can escape.
"They spent 17 hours at the airport the day the suicide bomb went off. They were on the phone to me - they were struggling with Taliban guards. They spent 23 hours at the airport before the Americans left because as well as reaching out to our government, they were reaching out to the French and American governments too. They were told they need visas.
"Of course, if she is stopped by one of those gun-toting Taliban on a journey anywhere, she knows that her life is at risk. When I spoke to her yesterday, the best outcome, she believed, if she is caught by the Taliban, is to be shot and killed. What she fears is being brutalised and her family being brutalised."

What’s the situation at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border?

Reality Check
Government officials in Pakistan have played down suggestions there’s a growing refugee problem at one of the main border points with Afghanistan.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said: “Not a single person has been granted refugee status. Those [Afghans] who come from [the border town of] Chaman go back daily.”
He said that around 3,800 Afghans who’ve entered Pakistan have been granted visas for allowing them a limited stay.
The Chaman crossing with Afghanistan has always been an important trade and travel route. In 2017, around 25,000 to 30,000 people crossed on a daily basis, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
The numbers dropped due to Covid-19 restrictions and the border was partly closed earlier this year before re-opening again. The crossing then closed in August when the area was seized by the advancing Taliban. Some trade and travel have now resumed.
Pakistan’s National Security Adviser, Moeed Yusuf, told the BBC last week that the border saw 20,000 to 25,000 people going back and forth on a daily basis because it was a trade route.
But the evidence suggests many more people than usual have been gathering at the Chaman crossing in order to leave Afghanistan. Although we don’t have exact numbers, journalists who’ve been to the area recently have reported thousands of Afghans waiting to cross.

Taliban parade captured military kit in Kandahar

Finding out what has been going on in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan outside of the capital has been more difficult since the start of their lightning campaign that brought down the government.
Kandahar is the second-biggest city and was the founding place of the Taliban. An AFP journalist there says there was a parade of captured US military hardware on Wednesday.
Taliban leaders reclined on armchairs at Kandahar Cricket Ground, with hundreds of supporters in the terraces, the correspondent says, waiting for the parade to start.
Humvees and various multi-purpose trucks have been taken, and at least one Black Hawk helicopter has been seen flying over the city.
The weapons were seized after troops from the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces surrendered, one city after the other.
There were rumours the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, would show up for the parade but it was left to the new Taliban governor to address the crowd.
Read more: Black Hawks and Humvees - military kit now with the Taliban

Taliban: 'There may not be top posts for women'

In an interview with BBC Pashto, the deputy head of the Taliban political office in Qatar said women could continue in their work, including at "lower levels" of government, but in the top posts or cabinet there "may not" be a woman.
The Taliban are expected to form their new government in the coming days but questions remain about what their rule will look like and mean for Afghanistan.

Taliban urge Panjshir Valley fighters to lay down arms

The Taliban have called on fighters in the last major opposition stronghold - the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul - to lay down their weapons.
In an audio message on Twitter, senior Taliban official Amir Khan Muttaqi said talks had failed and he urged residents to persuade the fighters to give up.
But Afghanistan's ousted defence minister, Bismillah Mohammadi, said an overnight attack on Panjshir was repulsed, resulting in 34 Taliban deaths.
The Panjshir has immense symbolic value in Afghanistan as the area that has resisted occupation by invaders over many decades.
Several thousand anti-Taliban fighters are reported to be holding out in the remote valley with a narrow entrance - little more than 30 miles or so (50km) from the capital.
Read more here: The 'undefeated' Panjshir Valley - an hour from Kabul

Hibatullah Akhundzada - Taliban's secretive leader

Hibatullah Akhundzada is the Taliban's supreme commander

Taliban leaders held three days of meetings in the southern city of Kandahar that ended on Monday.
Hibatullah Akhundzada reportedly chaired the talks and had been expected to appear in public for the first time in years in the spiritual home of the Taliban - but he did not show up.
Akhundzada, who is believed to be in his 60s, became the supreme commander of the Taliban in May 2016.
In the 1980s, he participated in the Islamist resistance against the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan - but his reputation is more that of a religious leader than a military commander.
Akhundzada worked as head of the Sharia Courts in the 1990s.
He is in charge of political, military and religious affairs.
Read more about who's who in the Taliban leadership

Taliban prepare to announce government

The deputy head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar has given an interview to BBC Pashto.
Sher Abbas Stanekzai said a Taliban government could be announced in the next two days and would be inclusive - with a role for women at lower levels but not in very high positions.
He also said those who served in government in the past two decades would not be included.
He said the recent chaos at Kabul airport was due to the mismanagement by the Americans, and $30m (£22m) was now needed for repairs.
He added that the airport would be ready to resume operations in two days.
A Qatar aircraft carrying technicians on Wednesday landed in Kabul, AFP quoted a source as saying.
The BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet and her team visited the airport on Tuesday - shortly after it was taken under full control by the Taliban.
The BBC team filmed elite Taliban units armed with US weapons and wearing American uniforms now patrolling the grounds, as well as hangars and offices abandoned by the Americans just hours ago.

'The Taliban will kill me if they find me'

Thousands of Afghans have flocked to Kabul airport in the past two weeks in a desperate attempt to leave the country and escape the Taliban takeover.
The BBC spoke to one man who could not escape. He is now in hiding, so his real name has been changed to protect his identity.
After the Taliban took over Kabul, Nazeef, along with his wife and baby abandoned their home.
He has a long history with the Taliban, but it is his last role in government which he thinks makes him a prime target.
"I was in a very sensitive department managing service records of people. The Taliban know if they get hold of me, they can get the names and addresses of so many people they want to target."
He has heard from his neighbours that the Taliban came to his home at least three times in the past two weeks.
Nazeef fears he may not be able to move much once the Taliban increase their presence in Kabul. He is preparing to undertake the risky journey with his wife and child by paying money to people smugglers.
He knows it is a tough journey, in which many migrants have been killed and where women are especially vulnerable to sexual assault.
Nazeef says it will not be easy as "the Taliban have said they have sealed all the border crossings with neighbouring countries".
Yet, Nazeef is prepared to take the risk.
"They will never forgive me. If I remain in Kabul, the Taliban will kill me if they find me."

Two decades of war 'have cost the US $5.8tn'

After the 9/11 attacks, the US will have spent $5.8tn waging war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria by the end of 2022, according to updated figures from the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
The figure - which includes interest on debt used to finance the wars - will continue to increase in the decades ahead, with healthcare for veterans projected to hit $2.2tn by 2050.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq differ from previous wars as they were mostly funded by borrowing, rather than through taxes and war bonds.
"It's critical we properly account for the vast and varied consequences of the many US wars and counterterror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on all of the lives lost," Neta Crawford, a co-director of the Costs of War Project and chair of the political science department at Boston University, told CBS News.

Dutch to move Afghan mission to Qatar

The Netherlands will move its Kabul diplomatic mission to Qatar now the Taliban are back in power, Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag has said.
"I've asked His Excellency very kindly agree to the relocation of the Netherlands embassy from Kabul to Doha," Kaag told journalists after meeting her Qatari counterpart in Doha, the AFP news agency reports.
This follows similar moves by the United States and the UK.
From 2011, Qatar hosted Taliban leaders who moved there to discuss peace in Afghanistan.
It was also where the US and the Taliban signed an "agreement for bringing peace" last year, during Donald Trump's presidency, which paved the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

US to build border facility on Tajik-Afghan border

The US will assist in building a new facility for border guards in Tajikistan along the frontier with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to better respond to security threats, says the US embassy in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.
In a tweet, the embassy says the move will allow troops to deploy to the border areas "as soon as possible in response to threats".
The new facility will replace an outdated detachment in Tajikistan's south-western tip.
Tajikistan - an impoverished but strategically positioned Central Asian country - has a 1,357km (843 miles) border with Afghanistan.
Tajikistan hosts a Russian military base, and is a member of a Moscow-led post-Soviet security bloc.
In July, more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers fled to Tajikistan after clashing with Taliban militants, Tajik officials said.

Dominic Raab latest on what happens next in Afghanistan

MPs are pressing UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on what happens next in Afghanistan - here's the latest:

• The UK wants to get humanitarian aid to those who need it most and there are questions about what support can be given in neighbouring countries, he says
  
• The UK does need to "talk seriously with the Taliban", Raab says, as it is "one of the early tests" whether they will allow humanitarian organisations to do their jobs
  
• The Taliban must be judged by their ability to behave "in a reasonable and constructive way", he says
  
• Britain can't deal with the refugee crisis alone, Mr Raab argues - it should "lead by example" but the key regional players, Western countries and Gulf nations need to get involved to exercise an influence on the Taliban
  
• Raab says the UK will not recognise the Taliban but will test and judge them by how they respond and will work very closely with the US
  

Summing up Raab's appearance before MPs

Here are the key points we learned from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab:

• Dominic Raab says he will be "leaving to go to the region" (surrounding Afghanistan) but gives no details
  
• He says the central intelligence assessment in the run-up to Nato troops pulling out was that there would be a "steady deterioration" in the security situation in August, but it was "unlikely Kabul would fall this year"
  
• He admits ministers are "not confident with any precision at all" about the number of British citizens left behind in Afghanistan but estimates it is in the "hundreds, possibly the mid to low hundreds"
  
• He says ministers have "huge compassion" for the plight of people in Afghanistan but it would be "wrong to just open the door" for them to come to the UK
  
• Afghan guards who were based at the British embassy in Kabul did not make it out of the country because buses transporting them "were not given permission to enter the airport"
  
• Asked whether a portrait of the Queen was left behind in the embassy in Kabul, he says orders were given for everything to be destroyed
  
• He did not consider offering to resign because his focus was "getting on with the job" and "helping to get people out"
  

US students 'have not returned from Afghanistan'

Twenty-four students from a California school district remain stranded in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal, according to school officials in the city of Sacramento.
According to the San Juan Unified School District, six families have been able to get out this week.
The schools first noticed their absence when they did not return for the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic year, which started last month, only days after the fall of Kabul.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper reports that the school district is home to 1,400 refugee students from Afghanistan.
More than 6,500 Afghans live in the area, according to the Institute for Immigration Research.
It is unclear whether the students are American or Afghan citizens.
On Tuesday, US Representative Ami Bera, a Democrat from California, told Fox News that her office had reached out to the departments of defence and state, but received no update.

Were top Taliban commanders released under Trump's deal?

Reality Check
Joe Biden said in his televised speech on Tuesday that Donald Trump's deal with the Taliban had authorised “the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan".
It is true that the Trump administration reached a deal last year with the Taliban to release 5,000 Taliban members in exchange for 1,000 prisoners from the Afghan security forces.
This swap was finally completed in September 2020, when more than 400 Taliban prisoners who had committed “major crimes" according to the Afghan government, were eventually given their freedom following pressure from the United States.
So were there Taliban “top war commanders” among those released?
Afghan government officials certainly believe there were and have told the Americans of their concerns.
Reported to have been among them was Mawlavi Talib, a senior Taliban commander who oversaw the attack on the southern Afghan city of Lashkar Gah.
It’s also important to note that other Taliban commanders were released long before the Trump administration’s agreement.
For example, several senior Taliban members were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Obama administration in 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange.

UK fears grow over Afghan terror bases

Frank Gardner - BBC Security Correspondent
The question on so many governments’ minds right now is how to stop Afghanistan slipping back into the same haven for terrorist bases that it was 20 years ago.
Sir Alex Younger, who ran Counter Terrorism at MI6 and was then its chief until last year, told the BBC he was not optimistic the Taliban could prevent this, even if they intended to. He said it was important to persuade neighbouring states to co-operate in this effort, despite Britain’s differences with them.
It’s being reported that Richard Moore, the current MI6 chief, has held talks with Pakistan’s army chief, while unnamed MI6 officers have met Taliban officials.
The foreign secretary is to head to the region for talks that will include how to help those trying to flee Afghanistan.
Despite being wrongfooted by the speed of the Taliban takeover, British officials are keen to impress on the Taliban that if they want international recognition and normal relations then they must do all they can to stop al-Qaeda, the IS-K group and any other designated terrorist organisations from making Afghanistan their home.
Read more here.

'Taliban military don't have slightest intention of reforming'

The World at One - BBC Radio 4
Michael Semple, a professor at Queen's University in Belfast and an expert on Afghanistan, has been talking to the BBC about the Taliban's ability to rule.
When I talk to people on the ground in Afghanistan, including people who’ve a long history with the Taliban movement, they stress the point that there is nothing really resembling a government in place yet and that - although the Taliban have physically taken over the institution - the people who are practically in charge have no notion of governing in a way that we would recognise.
So I think that the reassurances from people like deputy of the [Taliban's] political commission [in Doha, Sher Mohammad] Abbas Stanikzai - we shouldn't believe them until we see the reality. I don't think that we should expect to see a normal government to emerge anytime soon.
I've been actually talking with Taliban who are in charge of airports around the country and some of them are literally crying at the chaos which they have helped create and now inherited, and they are daunted by the task of reopening the civil aviation sector
This is a revolution and the people who drove the revolution were not the spokesmen or the diplomats – they were the Taliban military. The Taliban military doesn't have the slightest intention of reforming the movement or complying with human rights standards, they want power and rewards and they also want to be seen to be implementing their version of Islam.
That’s got nothing to do with the story of a reformed and moderate Taliban. I think the word we should be using is tyranny.
You can find the full episode here.

'Fewer than one in seven women journalists still working in Kabul'

Fewer than 100 of the 700 women journalists in Kabul before the Taliban takeover are still formally working, a report has found.
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and the Centre for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists said that "women journalists are in the process of disappearing from the capital".
Immediately following the militants' advance, a small number of women continued to appear on air, but others faced harassment or were told to stop working.
“Taliban respect for the fundamental right of women, including women journalists, to work and to practise their profession is a key issue,” said the RSF's secretary-general, Christophe Deloire.
"We urge the Taliban leadership to provide immediate guarantees for the freedom and safety of women journalists."
Outside of Kabul, the situation is even bleaker, as most women have stopped working after the closure of almost all privately owned media in other Afghan provinces, according to the report.

British passport delay blamed as baby stranded in Kabul

The parents of a seven-month-old baby who is stranded in Kabul without them say they are losing hope that they will be able to get her to the UK.
They say a five-month delay in receiving their baby's British passport means their daughter is stuck in Afghanistan with grandparents.
The mother and British father say they had no choice but to return to the UK in May to retain the mother's UK visa.
The government said it would do all it could to help British nationals.
The baby's mother, an Afghan national, travelled to Afghanistan in September last year to see family. She says she lost her UK ID card during her trip, and because of this, she was unable to return to the UK before her baby was born.
Her partner joined her in December, and their daughter was born in Kabul in January.
The parents only received their baby's passport on Wednesday.
"I beg the government to please help us bring my baby and family back to me," says the mother.
Read more here


21:36

Thanks for following

Thanks for following today's live page on the situation in Afghanistan. We're pausing our coverage for now.
Before we go, here are some of the main developments from today:

• The US top army general Mark Milley said the Taliban are ruthless but also said the US could co-operate with them in the fight against the Islamic State group
  
• UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says it is not known how many people eligible to come to the UK remain in Afghanistan
  
• He also said that the UK was "caught out" by the speed of the fall of Kabul with intelligence expecting it to hold until the end of the year
  
• A spokesperson for the Taliban said a new Afghan government could be announced in the next two days and will be inclusive
  
• He added that the airport would be ready to resume operations in two days
  
• Fewer than 100 of the 700 female journalists in Kabul before the Taliban takeover are still formally working, a report has found