Behesht Arghand of TOLO news interviews Abdul Haq Hammad, a close associate of Taliban media team on Tuesday/ Image vai TOLO news Twitter Handle
Afghan Updates: Taliban urges women to join government
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Military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan resumed early on Tuesday after the runway at Kabul airport was cleared of thousands of people desperate to flee after the Taliban seized the capital.
A day after chaotic scenes in which U.S. troops fired to disperse crowds and people clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it taxied for take-off, Reuters reported that the number of civilians at the airport had thinned out, quoting a Western security official.
U.S. forces on Sunday took charge of the airport, their only way to fly out of the country, as the militants were winding up a dramatic week of advances across the country with their takeover of the capital without a fight.
Flights were suspended for much of Monday, when at least five people were killed, witnesses said, although it was unclear whether they had been shot or crushed in a stampede.
Live Updates
17 Aug 2021 6:01 AM GMTTharoor doubts presence of two Keralite Taliban in their victory celebration video
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday shared a video of a group of Taliban celebrating its victory in Afghanistan in his twitter account in which gun wielding men are heard speaking in Malayalam.
"It sounds as if there are at least two Malayali Taliban here one who says 'samsarikkette' around the 8-second mark & another who understands him!", Tharoor wrote on his microblogging site after sharing the video posted on August 15.
The video showed the Taliban member weeping in joy as they reached outside Kabul, hours ahead of falling of the Afghanistan capital in their hands.
- 17 Aug 2021 5:53 AM GMT
Military evacuation flights take off from Kabul
Military flights transporting diplomats and civilians out of Afghanistan started taking off on Tuesday morning, a Western security official at Kabul airport told the Reuters news agency.
The airport runway and tarmac, overrun on Monday by thousands of people desperate to flee from the Afghanistan capital, are now clear of crowds, the official said.
US forces, which are in charge at the airport, had halted the departing flights because of the chaos.
- 17 Aug 2021 5:51 AM GMT
Malala Yousafzai urges world leaders to act
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai says she is deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan – particularly the safety of women and girls – and is calling on world leaders to take urgent action, reports Al Jazeera
The 23-year-old Yousafzai said that Biden “has a lot to do” and must “take a bold step” to protect the Afghan people while speaking at BBC Newsnight show.
“This is actually an urgent humanitarian crisis right now that we need to provide our help and support,”she said adding that she had been trying to reach out to several world leaders.
