Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said Wednesday he supports talks between the Taliban and top former officials, and denied allegations that he transferred large sums of money out of the country before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
Ghani -- making his first appearance since leaving Kabul on Sunday as the Taliban encircled the capital, a departure that ultimately resulted in their full takeover -- reiterated that he had left in order to spare the country more bloodshed.
He said in the recorded video message, broadcast on his Facebook page, that he had no intention of remaining in exile in the Gulf nation and was "in talks" to return home.
He also said he was making efforts to "safeguard the rule of Afghans over our country", without offering details.
Here are the Highlights on Afghanistan-Taliban crisis:
Taliban Supporting UK Evacuation Plans, Says British Envoy In Kabul
Taliban Stop Exports, Imports With India, Says Top Exporters BodyThe number of U.S. troops at Kabul's international airport reached about 4,500 on Wednesday, a U.S. official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the number is set to hit 6,000 in the coming days, Reuters reported.
"We are deeply worried about Afghan women and girls, their rights to education, work and freedom of movement. We call on those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan to guarantee their protection," said the statement.
Afghans who arrived in Germany on Wednesday described chaotic and terrifying scenes at Kabul airport before they were evacuated to safety and said they feared for lives of loved ones they left behind.
Speaking shortly after landing in Frankfurt on a flight from Tashkent, men, women and children said they were part of a lucky few evacuated by NATO armies after the country fell to the Taliban with astonishing speed. Read Here
France said on Wednesday it had evacuated almost 200 Afghan nationals from Kabul overnight as it steps up airlifts out of the Afghan capital following the Taliban takeover.
The French military is taking people out of Kabul on military planes to Abu Dhabi, from where they are to be flown on passenger aircraft to Paris. A first contingent of 41 French and foreign nationals arrived in France on Monday. Read Here
Girls wearing white hijabs and black tunics crammed into classrooms in the western Afghan city of Herat just days after the Taliban's takeover. As the school opened its doors, the students scurried down corridors and chatted in courtyards, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil that has engulfed the country in the past two weeks. Read more
Britain's Army Chief: "It May Well Be A Taliban That Is More Reasonable"The world should give the Taliban the space to form a new government in Afghanistan and may discover that the insurgents cast as militants by the West for decades have become more reasonable, the head of the British army said on Wednesday.
UK has evacuated 2,052 Afghans so far: PM Boris Johnson
How Ghani, Afghanistan's President Went From Hero to Villain-in-HidingIf anyone was supposed to know how to fix Afghanistan, it was Ashraf Ghani. Before becoming president in 2014, Ghani spent much of his life studying how to boost growth in poor nations. A Fulbright Scholar with a doctorate from Columbia University, he taught at some of America's elite academic institutions before stints at the World Bank and United Nations. Later he co-wrote "Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World."
YouTube Says It Bans Accounts Believed To Be Owned By The TalibanAlphabet Inc's YouTube said on Tuesday it bans accounts believed to be owned and operated by the Taliban, as US social media companies scrambled to publicly clarify their rules on the group that is in control of Afghanistan.
Freelance Journalist Kanika Gupta (@kanika0509), who was reporting from Afghanistan, speaks to NDTV's Saurabh Shukla about her experience there and how the Taliban took over one city after another within weeks. pic.twitter.com/jjahDtWM2N
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
How To Handle Taliban: G-7 Countries Meet Online Next Week On ThisThe Taliban said on Tuesday they wanted peaceful relations with other countries and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law, as they held their first official news briefing since their lightning seizure of Kabul.
Afghanistan Crisis: Taliban Blow Up Hazara Leader's Statue After Afghanistan TakeoverThe Taliban have blown up slain Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari's statue in Bamiyan, a grim reminder of the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas during its previous tenure.
Opinion: The Kabul Escape And Fascinating Stories Behind Evac MissionsThe gut-wrenching video of Afghan nationals running alongside, and some climbing, an American C-17 aircraft as it attempts a take-off from Kabul would be the Afghanistan equivalent of the photo of a CIA Bell 205 taking on evacuees from the US Embassy rooftop in Saigon in 1975. Both are iconic images of desperate people trying to escape to safer destinations. Behind each image is a story of twists and turns and political games that nations, sometimes not on the best of terms, play.
Afghanistan Crisis: Taliban Says Its Deputy Leader And Co-Founder Back In AfghanistanThe Taliban have pledged not to seek "revenge" against their opponents in Afghanistan in their first press conference since taking power, as the United States said they would hold the terror group to their promises to respect human rights.
Afghanistan: On Frontline Of Fear, Afghan Teen Forced To Ferry Arms For TalibanHours after the Taliban overran his hometown in northern Afghanistan last week, 17-year-old Abdullah was forced to ferry rocket-propelled grenades up a nearby hill- an unwilling and terrified insurgent recruit.
#Afghanistan | "It could be because they need legitimacy and recognition from the international community. But their actions outside of Kabul are not very encouraging": Manju Seth, former Diplomat, on recent Taliban statements assuring protection of women's rights pic.twitter.com/P6J95G282z
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
Japan is in close contact with a "small number" of its nationals still in Afghanistan, seeking to ensure their safety after Taliban militants took over Kabul, the government's top spokesman said on Wednesday. Amid a deteriorating security situation in the Afghan capital after the Taliban took control without a fight on Sunday, Japan closed its embassy there and evacuated the last 12 personnel, officials said this week.
#Afghanistan | "India has to be commended for safely evacuating the embassy staff in such a chaotic situation": C Uday Bhaskar (@theUdayB), defence expert pic.twitter.com/oD9PmH1r7M
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
President Joe Biden does not believe that the country should be "fighting and dying" in a war for the purpose of sustaining American military boots near Tajikistan or Pakistan or Iran, his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said, defending the president's decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. President 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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval meet over the #Afghanistan situation. NDTV's Neeta Sharma reports pic.twitter.com/QcVJpCReMH
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
Australia flew 26 people out of Afghanistan in its first rescue flight, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, after Australian troops arrived to help with the evacuation from Kabul airport that has been secured by US and British colleagues. Australia said on Monday it would send 250 military personnel to Kabul to evacuate it citizens and an unspecified number of Afghans who had been given visas after working for Australia.
Video: In Desperate Bid To Escape, Afghan Men Hang Onto Planes Taking OffA crowd crouching on the wing of a plane as it taxies down the runway, one of them recording the moment on a cellphone -- a new video has emerged that starkly captures the desperation of Afghans to leave the country that will now be run by Taliban.
The takeover of Kabul and other regions of Afghanistan by the Taliban has unleashed a wave of panic among Afghan nationals residing in India, who fear for the safety of their friends and families back home. Read more
Inside Story Of How Indian Embassy Staff Made It To Kabul Airport
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
Read more: https://t.co/bsJxdGV42p pic.twitter.com/qdGyKzqzl2
The United Nations Human Rights Council announced Tuesday it will hold a special session on Afghanistan on August 24 to address the "serious human rights concerns" following the Taliban takeover.
"Taliban coming back to power is not really a surprise given how Afghanistan has receded in US' national interest over the past few years": Kalyani Unkule, OP Jindal Global University, on the #Taliban takeover of Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/qY9QvVQxOT
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
UN Human Rights Council To Discuss Afghanistan On August 24The United Nations Human Rights Council announced Tuesday it will hold a special session on Afghanistan on August 24 to address the "serious human rights concerns" following the Taliban takeover.
.@OnReality_Check | "In the Afghan way of consolidating power, you don't go in for bloody battles, a lot of the acknowledgements of who the power is, are done through negotiations and through payoffs": @AjaiShukla on ex-Vice President Amrullah Saleh's fight back pic.twitter.com/bet06Czo2m
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
US President Joe Biden has not spoken with any of his fellow world leaders since Kabul fell to the Taliban, the White House said on Tuesday.
"He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters.
"Myself, Secretary (Antony) Blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts and we intend to do so in the coming days," he added.
.@OnReality_Check | Azmat Khan (@AzmatZahra), Award-winning investigative journalist, says 'Biden framed his speech around the decision to end the war & not around the hasty & chaotic exit that has left so many people who partnered with the Americans in limbo'. pic.twitter.com/8HhWloeuGl
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
Afghans, who hold a far more favourable view about India than Pakistan, expected much more from New Delhi and there is a growing sense of abandonment in Kabul, a journalist who just made it back in time on an Indian Air Force (IAF) special flight told NDTV on Tuesday. Read more
.@OnReality_Check | 48 hours since the Taliban has seized power by the barrel of the gun in Afghanistan, it has attempted to suggest it is no longer the dreaded near-medieval terror outfit of old. pic.twitter.com/Bn8AekSROE
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
Social media giant Facebook has said that it has banned the Taliban and all content supporting it from its platforms as it considers the group to be a terrorist organisation, according to a media report. The company says it has a dedicated team of Afghan experts to monitor and remove content linked to the insurgent group. Read more
.@OnReality_Check | "Nepotism and corruption in selection of people at the top, there was apparently a major divide between them and foot-soldiers": Gen VP Malik (@Vedmalik1) on collapse of Afghan forces against Taliban pic.twitter.com/QeiRwi2jCc
- NDTV (@ndtv) August 18, 2021
After being confined to their mission compound for more than 36 hours, Indian diplomats were escorted to the airport on Tuesday morning by the Taliban but only after foreign agencies intervened and requested the terrorist group to provide safe passage for staffers of the Indian mission. Read more
