Taliban Commander Anas Haqqani met former Afghan President Hamid Karzai to set up Government….
Taliban commander Anas Haqqani, has met former Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks a Taliban official said on Wednesday, amid efforts by the Taliban to set up a government.
The former President, Karzai was accompanied by the old government’s main peace envoy Abdullah Abdullah in the meeting, said the Taliban official. There was no mention of Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who had claimed to be the country’s ‘legitimate’ caretaker president after President Ashraf Ghani left.
In Kabul airport, the evacuation of diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan on military flights gathered momentum on Wednesday. The United States said that the Taliban has agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a US-directed airlift after reports emerged of some civilians “being turned away or pushed back or even beaten” as they tried to reach the international airport. There is no clarity on when civilian flights would resume.
According to photos circulating on social media on Wednesdsay, the Taliban have blown up the statue of a Shia militia leader who had fought against them during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s.
The statue stood in the central Bamyan province, where the Taliban infamously blew up two massive 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in 2001, shortly before the US-led invasion that drove them from power. The Taliban claimed the Buddhas violated Islam’s prohibition on idolatry.
However, The Taliban have promised a new era of peace and security, saying they will forgive those who fought against them and grant women full rights under Islamic law, without elaborating. But many Afghans are deeply dubious of the group, especially those who remember its previous rule when it imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
Afghanistan’s central bank governor says that the country has some $9 billion in reserves abroad and not in physical cash inside the country. A Taliban commander and senior leader of the Haqqani Network militant group, Anas Haqqani, has met former Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks, a Taliban official said on Wednesday, amid efforts by the Taliban to set up a government. Leaders of the Afghan Taliban will not stay in the ‘shadow of secrecy’, a group official had said earlier today.
On the other side, the British government says it will welcome up to 5,000 Afghan refugees this year, and a total of 20,000 Afghans will be offered a way to settle in the U.K. in the coming years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said late Tuesday: “We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who have worked with us to make Afghanistan a better place over the last 20 years.”
British lawmakers are returning to Parliament Wednesday for an emergency session to discuss Afghanistan. Johnson is set to tell lawmakers there must be an immediate increase in aid to Afghanistan to avert a humanitarian crisis erupting in the country following the Taliban’s seizure of power.
Earlier on August 17th it was announced that India will issue an emergency e-visa to Afghan nationals who want to come to the country in view of the prevailing situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban captured power there.
All Afghans, irrespective of their religion, can apply for the ‘e-Emergency X-Misc Visa’ online and the applications will be processed in New Delhi.
