Afghanistan parked billions of dollars in assets overseas with the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks in Europe, but that money has been frozen since the Islamist Taliban ousted the Western-backed government in August.

A spokesman for the finance ministry said the government would respect human rights, including the education of women, as he sought fresh funds on top of humanitarian aid that he said offered only “small relief”.

Under Taliban rule from 1996-2001, women were largely shut out of paid employment and education and normally had to cover their faces and be accompanied by a male relative when they left home.

“The money belongs to the Afghan nation. Just give us our own money,” ministry spokesman Ahmad Wali Haqmal told Reuters. “Freezing this money is unethical and is against all international laws and values.”

One top central bank official called on European countries including Germany to release their share of the reserves to avoid an economic collapse that could trigger mass migration towards Europe.

“The situation is desperate and the amount of cash is dwindling,” Shah Mehrabi, a board member of the Afghan Central Bank, told Reuters. “There is enough right now … to keep Afghanistan going until the end of the year.

“Europe is going to be affected most severely, if Afghanistan does not get access to this money,” said Mehrabi.

“You will have a double whammy of not being able to find bread and not being able to afford it. People will be desperate. They are going to go to Europe,” he said.

The call for assistance comes as Afghanistan faces a collapse of its fragile economy.

The departure of U.S.-led forces and many international donors left the country without grants that financed three quarters of public spending.

The finance ministry said it had a daily tax take of roughly 400 million Afghanis ($4.4 million).

Although Western powers want to avert a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, they have refused to officially recognise the Taliban government.

Haqmal said Afghanistan would allow women an education, although not in the same classrooms as men.

Human rights, he said, would be respected but within the framework of Islamic law, which would not include gay rights.

“LGBT… That’s against our Sharia law,” he said.

Mehrabi hopes that while the United States has recently said it will not release its lion’s share of roughly $9 billion of funds, European countries might.

He said Germany held half a billion dollars of Afghan money and that it and other European countries should release those funds.

Mehrabi said that Afghanistan needed $150 million each month to “prevent imminent crisis”, keeping the local currency and prices stable, adding that any transfer could be monitored by an auditor.

“If reserves remain frozen, Afghan importers will not be able to pay for their shipments, banks will start to collapse, food will be become scarce, grocery stores will be empty,” Mehrabi said.

He said that about $431 million of central bank reserves were held with German lender Commerzbank, as well as a further roughly $94 million with Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank.

The Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella group for global central banks in Switzerland, holds a further approximately $660 million.

All three declined to comment.

The Taliban took back power in Afghanistan in August after the United States pulled out its troops, almost 20 years after the Islamists were ousted by U.S.-led forces following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Source: Reuters

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State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. delegation in the weekend talks in Doha, Qatar, focused on security and terrorism concerns and safe passage for U.S. citizens, other foreign nationals and Afghans, as well as on human rights, including the meaningful participation of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan society.

He said the two sides also discussed “the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people.”

“The discussions were candid and professional with the U.S. delegation reiterating that the Taliban will be judged on its actions, not only its words,” Price said in a statement.

It did not say if any agreements were reached.

On Saturday, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television quoted Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister as saying that Taliban representatives asked the U.S. side to lift a ban on Afghan central bank reserves.

It said the minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, also said Washington would offer Afghans coronavirus vaccines and that the two sides discussed “opening a new page” between the two countries.

Biden administration officials told Reuters on Friday the U.S. delegation would press the Taliban to release kidnapped American Mark Frerichs.

Another top priority would be to hold the Taliban to their commitment not to allow Afghanistan to again become a hotbed for al Qaeda or other extremists.

The Taliban took back power in Afghanistan in August, almost 20 years after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The U.S. officials said the weekend meeting was a continuation of “pragmatic engagements” with the Taliban and “not about granting recognition or conferring legitimacy” to the group.

U.S. officials say they are in contact with dozens of Americans and legal permanent residents who wish to leave Afghanistan and there are thousands of U.S.-allied Afghans at risk of Taliban persecution still in the country.

Washington and other Western countries are grappling with difficult choices as a severe humanitarian crisis looms large in Afghanistan.

They are trying to work out how to engage with the Taliban without granting the group the legitimacy it seeks, while ensuring humanitarian aid flows into the country.

Source: Reuters

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Bachelet told the Human Rights Council in Geneva, that Afghanistan was in a “new and perilous phase” with many women and members of ethnic groups and religious communities deeply concerned for their rights.

“Importantly, and in contradiction to assurances that the Taliban would uphold women’s rights, over the past three weeks, women have instead been progressively excluded from the public sphere,’’ she said in her speech.

Bachelet expressed dismay at the composition of the Taliban’s new government, noting the absence of women and its dominance by ethnic Pashtun.

She pointed to other broken pledges on granting amnesty to former civil servants and security officers linked to the previous government and prohibiting house-to-house searches.

Source: Reuters/NAN

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Sarajuddin Haqqani, son of the founder of the Haqqani network, designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, will be the new interior minister, the Taliban’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul.

Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, has been named as defence minister.

All the appointments are in an acting capacity, Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul.

It was not clear what role in the government would be played by Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban supreme leader.

He has not been seen or heard in public since the collapse of the Western-backed government and the seizure of Kabul by the Islamist militant movement last month.

Akhund, the new head of government, has been close to Akhunzada for 20 years.

The Taliban have repeatedly sought to reassure Afghans and foreign countries that they will not return to the brutality of their last reign two decades ago, marked by brutal punishments and the barring of women and girls from public life.

The appointment of a group of established figures from different elements of the Taliban gave no indication of any concession towards protests that broke out in Kabul earlier in the day, when Taliban gunmen fired in the air to scatter them.

Hundreds of men and women shouting slogans such as “Long live the resistance” and “Death to Pakistan” marched in the streets to protest against the Taliban takeover.

Neighbouring Pakistan has deep ties with the Taliban and has been accused of assisting its return to power – charges Islamabad denies.

The Taliban’s rapid advance across Afghanistan as U.S. forces pulled out last month triggered a scramble to leave by people fearing reprisals.

U.S.-led foreign forces evacuated about 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans, but tens of thousands were left behind.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was in contact with about 100 Americans who were still in Afghanistan.

About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for days awaiting clearance for charter flights to leave, an organiser told Reuters, blaming the delay on the U.S. State Department.

Source: Reuters

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Scenes from Kabul showed supporters firing guns into the air and cars honking into the early hours of Tuesday.

The last American troops left Kabul Airport at midnight.

At that point, Afghanistan gained “full independence,” one Taliban representative, Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Another senior Taliban official, Anas Haqqani, was quoted by AFP as saying he was “proud” to witness such “historic moments”.

Afghans flee to Pakistan over land

With foreign evacuation flights now ended, Afghans still desperate to find a way out of the country may be heading to the nation’s borders.

Already over the past two weeks, thousands have fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

Our reporter Shumaila Jaffery has been at the Chaman border:

“From dawn till dusk they pour in – hundreds of men with luggage on their shoulders, burqa-clad women walking briskly behind their men, children clinging to their mothers, exhausted in the scorching heat, and even patients pushed on wheelbarrows.”

She spoke with many refugees, including one student who said:

“Everybody wants to live in their homes, but we were forced to leave Afghanistan. We are not feeling good about migrating to Pakistan or other countries, all people are worried, but they don’t have any hope.”

Who was evacuated from Afghanistan in the end?

Soon after the US announced the end of its Afghanistan mission, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters that 123,000 people were safely flown out since the Taliban took over on 14 August.

Out of them, 6,000 were American citizens.

Secretary Blinken says between 100 and 200 American citizens who still want to leave remain in the country and that the US will hold the Taliban to their promise to let people freely depart the country.

It is unclear just how many of those evacuated are Afghans.

Around 15,000 people were flown to Britain, according to the UK defence ministry

Canada facilitated the evacuation of roughly 3,700 Canadian and Afghan citizens

Germany flew around 5,300 people out, including more than 4,000 Afghan nationals

Italy evacuated just over 5,000 people including 4,890 Afghans

Nearly 3,000 people including more than 2,600 Afghans were taken to France

Australia welcomed 4,100 people including more than 3,200 citizens and Afghans with visas to the country

The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Australia and Sweden are among countries that evacuated more than 1,000 people each from Kabul airport.

Source: BBC

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President Joe Biden vowed on Thursday that the United States would hunt down those responsible for the attack, saying he had ordered the Pentagon to come up with plans to strike at the perpetrators.

U.S. Central Command said the strike took place in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul and bordering Pakistan.

“Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,” a U.S. military statement said.

It did not say whether the target was connected with the airport attack.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the strike was against an Islamic State militant planning future attacks.

A reaper drone, which took off from the Middle East, struck the militant while he was in a car with an Islamic State associate, the official said.

Both are believed to have been killed, the official added.

Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), an affiliate of militants who previously battled U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, said it had carried out Thursday’s attack, which killed dozens of people – including Afghans who were trying to leave the country.

In addition to the 13 U.S. troops killed, 18 injured were flown to Germany.

There are roughly 5,000 U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport, helping to evacuate American citizens, at-risk Afghans and other nationalities before Biden’s Tuesday deadline.

Thursday’s attack marked the first U.S. military casualties in Afghanistan since February 2020 and represented the deadliest incident for American troops there in a decade.

“We will not forgive, we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Thursday.

He appeared to be fighting back tears and his voice cracked with emotion as he talked about the American “heroes” who died.

He ordered flags at the White House and public buildings around the country to be lowered to half-staff.

Biden defended his handling of his most serious foreign policy crisis, saying ultimately it is his responsibility, while assigning some blame to his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, for the 2020 agreement Trump negotiated with the Taliban.

U.S. forces in Kabul have been anticipating another attack from Islamic State militants.

Late on Friday the U.S. Embassy warned that Americans should avoid travelling to the airport because of security threats, and those at the Abbey, East, North or Ministry of Interior gates should leave immediately.

Source: Reuters

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Two blasts and gunfire rocked the area outside the airport on Thursday evening, witnesses said.

Video shot by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies strewn around a canal on the edge of the airport.

A health official and a Taliban official said the toll of Afghans killed had risen to 72, including 28 Taliban members.

The U.S. military said 13 of its service members were killed.

Islamic State, ISIS, an enemy of the Taliban as well as the West, said one of its suicide bombers targeted “translators and collaborators with the American army”.

U.S. officials also blamed the group and vowed retribution.

General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said U.S. commanders were on alert for more attacks by Islamic State, including possibly rockets or vehicle-borne bombs targeting the airport.

“We’re doing everything we can to be prepared,” he said, adding that some intelligence was being shared with the Taliban and that he believed “some attacks have been thwarted by them.”

U.S. forces are racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by an August 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden, who says the United States had long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country in 2001: to root out al Qaeda militants and prevent a repeat of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Biden said he had ordered the Pentagon to plan how to strike ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility.

“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said during televised comments from the White House.

Video taken in the aftermath of the attack showed corpses in a waste water canal by the airport fence, some being fished out and laid in heaps while wailing civilians searched for loved ones.

“I saw bodies and body parts flying in the air like a tornado blowing plastic bags,” said one Afghan witness. “That little water flowing in the sewage canal had turned into blood.”

Zubair, a 24 year-old civil engineer, said he was close to a suicide bomber who detonated explosives.

“Men, women and children were screaming. I saw many injured people – men, women and children – being loaded into private vehicles and taken toward the hospitals,” he said.

‘CHAOTIC EVACUATION’

A U.S. Central Command spokesperson said 18 soldiers wounded in the attack were “in the process of being aeromedically evacuated from Afghanistan on specially equipped C-17s with embarked surgical units”.

A Taliban official lamented the number of Taliban members killed in the ISIS attack.

“We have lost more people than the Americans in the airport blast,” a Taliban official said, adding that the Taliban was “not responsible for the chaotic evacuation plan prepared by foreign nations”.

A NATO country diplomat in Kabul said all foreign forces were aiming to evacuate their citizens and embassy employees by August 30.

The Taliban would tighten security around the airport, said the diplomat who declined to be identified.

“Security is their responsibility,” the diplomat said, adding that the Taliban should investigate the Islamic State network.

Western countries fear that the Taliban, who once sheltered Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, will allow Afghanistan to turn again into a haven for militants.

The Taliban say they will not let the country be used by terrorists.

ISIS-K was initially confined to areas on the border with Pakistan but has established a second front in the north of the country.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point says ISIS-K includes Pakistanis from other militant groups and Uzbek extremists in addition to Afghans.

AIRLIFT CONTINUES

The United States would press on with evacuations despite the threat of further attacks, McKenzie said, noting that there were still about round 1,000 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan.

The pace of evacuation flights had accelerated on Friday and American passport holders had been allowed to enter the airport compound, said a Western security official stationed inside the airport.

In the past 12 days, Western countries have evacuated nearly 100,000 people.

But they acknowledge that thousands will be left behind when the last U.S. troops leave at the end of the month.

Several Western countries said the mass airlift of civilians was coming to an end and announced their last remaining troops had left the country.

The American casualties in Thursday’s attack were believed to be the most U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in a single incident since 30 personnel died when a helicopter was shot down in 2011.

The U.S. deaths were the first in action in Afghanistan in 18 months, a fact likely to be cited by critics who accuse Biden of recklessly abandoning a stable and hard-won status quo by ordering an abrupt pullout.

Source: Reuters

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Australia, the US and UK have issued alerts to their citizens.

Those already outside the airport are advised to leave the area immediately.

More than 82,000 people have been airlifted from Kabul, which fell to the Taliban 10 days ago.

Countries are rushing to evacuate people by a 31 August deadline.

Thousands of people are still waiting inside and outside the airport, hoping to fly out of the country.

The Taliban have opposed extending the deadline but also promised to allow foreigners and Afghans to leave the country beyond 31 August, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

On Thursday, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, said: “There is an ongoing and very high threat of a terrorist attack”.

It comes hours after the US State Department told those waiting at the Abbey Gate, East Gate or North Gate to “leave immediately”.

The UK issued similar advice asking people there to “move away to a safe location and await further advice”.

The Foreign Office said that the security situation in Afghanistan “remains volatile” adding that there was “an ongoing and high threat of a terrorist attack”.

None of the countries gave any further information on the security threat.

In a speech on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said the US-controlled airlift would have to come to an end soon because of an increasing threat from the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

About 19,000 people have been evacuated on US-organised flights in the past 24 hours, Mr Blinken said on Wednesday, with airlifts stepped up in recent days amid scenes of chaos.

He said that the US was still on track to complete operations at Kabul airport by the end of the month.

“Only the United States could organise and execute a mission of this scale and this complexity,” he told reporters in Washington.

“The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third-country nationals and Afghans at risk past August 31st,” he said.

He added that the US would help those who wanted to leave Afghanistan “not just during the duration of our evacuation and relocation mission, but every day thereafter”.

Up to 1,500 US nationals could still be in the country and the administration was making exhaustive efforts to trace them, the secretary of state said.

The CIA and the US military have been carrying out clandestine operations to extract Americans using helicopters and ground troops, US and other officials have told the Wall Street Journal.

The perilous operations have been both inside and outside of Kabul, the paper says.

The Pentagon has said 10,000 people are still waiting to be evacuated from Kabul airport by US aircraft.

There are fears for thousands more Afghans who are desperate to leave but cannot reach the site.

BBC correspondents say many of those being turned back by the Taliban at the airport gates appear to have travel papers.

President Joe Biden tweeted that the US would “do everything” to “provide safe evacuation”.

The UK said its evacuation operation was moving at “significant pace”, with some 1,200 people flown out on Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said his government would use “every hour and day that we’ve got left” to fly British nationals and eligible Afghans out.

Kabul airport is currently being defended by 5,800 US and 1,000 British troops.

Source: BBC

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Under an agreement with the Taliban, the US must leave by 31 August.

But France, the UK and Germany all raised the possibility of allowing more time ahead of a summit on Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden is set to decide within the next 24 hours whether to extend the timeline for withdrawal, an official told Reuters news agency.

However the Taliban have told the BBC that any extension would violate the agreed deal and warned of consequences if forces remained.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from the Afghan capital Kabul, but others seeking to flee remain crammed in or near the city’s airport, which is guarded by US forces and their allies.

Many of the people fleeing, particularly those who worked with foreign forces, live in fear of reprisals from a group that imposed a harsh version of Islamic law when in power from 1996 to 2001.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in the UAE: “We are concerned about the deadline set by the United States on August 31. Additional time is needed to complete ongoing operations.”

Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said he had discussed keeping Kabul airport open beyond the deadline with Nato allies and the Taliban.

On Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to push the US for an extension during the virtual summit with other G7 leaders.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the prime minister was “going to try and raise the prospect of seeing if the United States will extend” its withdrawal.

The UK has said that any foreign military presence at Kabul airport cannot continue without US troops.

Military advisers have told the White House that a decision needs to be made on Tuesday in order to allow for the troops along with their equipment and weapons to leave in time for the deadline, CNN reports.

A defence official told the network that if Mr Biden agreed on withdrawing in time for the deadline, there would be “a few more” days of evacuating people before the drawdown of troops began, possibly at the end of this week.

Currently 5,800 troops are on the ground.

According to the White House, about 10,900 people were evacuated from Kabul between 11:30 and 23:30 local time (07:00 – 19:00 GMT) on Monday.

The US has evacuated, and facilitated the evacuation of, approximately 48,000 people since an intense airlift started on 14 August, the White House said.

The Taliban have tried to paint a conciliatory picture for those Afghans who stay, asking them to help rebuild the country.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the BBC people with passports would still be able to leave on commercial flights after the deadline.

He said: “We want them to stay in the country but if they intend to go, they can.”

The United Nations human rights council is set to meet in an emergency session on Tuesday to discuss Afghanistan.

It comes amid warnings from aid agencies about the deepening humanitarian crisis in the country and concerns over human rights, in particular, the rights of women.

The Taliban say they will respect the rights of women and girls but there are already reports of detentions and executions.

Human rights groups say the UN must create an international, independent body to investigate what is happening.

Tuesday’s emergency human rights council session could do this – but the draft resolution, submitted by Pakistan does not go that far, the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes says.

The resolution asks the UN human rights chief to keep an eye on things, and report back in December.

The airlift began as the Taliban moved into Kabul following a lightning campaign that saw them take over almost all of the country in the wake of the US decision to withdraw forces.

The sole remaining area holding out appears to be the Panjshir region north-east of Kabul, a stronghold of anti-Taliban opponents who say thousands of people are ready to carry on the fight.

The Taliban were ousted by US and allied troops following al-Qaeda’s 11 September 2001 attacks.

A 20-year conflict ensued.

Source: BBC

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One Afghan guard was killed and three others were injured in the battle, which also involved U.S. and German forces, the German military said on Twitter, without specifying whether the dead Afghan was one of the Taliban fighters deployed to guard the airport.

The airport has been a scene of chaos since the Taliban seized the Afghan capital on Aug. 15 as U.S. and international forces try to evacuate citizens and vulnerable Afghans.

On Sunday, Taliban fighters beat back crowds at the airport a day after seven Afghans were killed in a crush at the gates as the deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops approaches.

Foreign forces in Afghanistan have not sought to extend the Aug. 31 deadline to leave the country, a Taliban official said on Monday, after President Joe Biden said U.S. troops might stay longer to oversee a “hard and painful” evacuation.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan just over a week ago as the United States and its allies withdrew troops after a 20-year war aimed at overthrowing the Taliban and hunting down al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.

Foreign forces were working towards the end-August deadline agreed with the Taliban to leave the country and had not sought to extend it yet, a senior legal adviser to the Taliban leadership told Reuters on Monday.

Biden, who last week flagged the possibility of troops remaining longer, said on Sunday the security situation in Afghanistan was changing rapidly and remained dangerous.

“Let me be clear, the evacuation of thousands from Kabul is going to be hard and painful” and would have been “no matter when it began”, Biden said in a briefing at the White House.

“We have a long way to go and a lot could still go wrong.”

Asked by a reporter whether the United States would extend an Aug. 31 deadline for evacuations, Biden replied: “Our hope is we will not have to extend but there are going to be discussions I suspect on how far along we are in the process.”

Biden said he had directed the State Department to contact Americans stranded in the country, where Taliban checkpoints are in place.

“We’re executing a plan to move groups of these Americans to safety and to safely and effectively move them to the airport compound. For security reasons, I’m not going to go into detail … but I will say again today what I’ve said before: Any American who wants to get home will get home.”

Afghan allies of the West and vulnerable Afghans such as women activists and journalists would be helped too, he said.

CIVILIAN AIRCRAFT

Panicked Afghans have clamoured to board flights out of Kabul, fearing reprisals and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law that the Sunni Muslim group implemented when it was last in power, two decades ago.

The United States on Sunday sought the help of six commercial airlines to transport people after their evacuation from Afghanistan.

Biden said people fleeing Afghanistan were being assisted by more than two dozen countries in four continents.

Japan said it will send a military aircraft to Afghanistan on Monday to bring back its citizens.

More flights are expected to repatriate not only Japanese citizens but also Afghans working at the Japanese embassy or with Japanese missions, a government spokesperson said.

A United Nations flight transported 120 people from Kabul to Kazakhstan on Sunday, said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Passengers included U.N. personnel and members of non-governmental organisations who work with the United Nations in Afghanistan, he said, adding that it was the second such flight in the past week.

OPPOSITION

Leaders of the Taliban, who have sought to show a more moderate face since capturing Kabul, have begun talks on forming a government.

They face opposition from forces in northern Afghanistan, which said this weekend they had taken three districts close to the Panjshir valley.

Anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Massoud said on Sunday he hoped to hold peaceful talks with the Islamist movement but that his forces in the Panjshir – remnants of army units, special forces and militiamen – were ready to fight.

“We want to make the Taliban realise that the only way forward is through negotiation,” he said. “We do not want a war to break out.”

The Taliban said hundreds of their fighters were heading towards Panjshir, showing a video on Twitter of a column of captured trucks with the white Taliban flag but still bearing their government markings moving along a highway.

Reuters spoke to eight doctors in public hospitals in several Taliban controlled cities elsewhere in the country who said they had not heard of any violence or received any wounded or bodies of people killed in clashes since Thursday.

Source: Reuters

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