31 Agoosto 2021″SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
The Taliban says Afghanistan is a “free and sovereign” nation as it hails the exit of US troops after 20 years of occupation, describing their departure as a “historic moment”.
Taliban fighters on Tuesday took charge of Kabul’s airport as the last US soldiers flew out of the country. Celebratory gunfire and fireworks lit up the Kabul night sky.
Speaking to reporters from Kabul airport, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, “We do not have any doubt that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a free and sovereign nation.
“America was defeated … and on behalf of my nation, we want to have good relations with the rest of the world,” he said.
He also promised Afghans “will protect our freedom, independence and Islamic values”.
Earlier, Marine General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, announced that the last American troops flew out of Kabul just before midnight local time (19:30 GMT).
“We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we stayed another 10 days, we would not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.”
US President Joe Biden set a deadline of August 31 for the withdrawal of US troops.
The Taliban now controls Kabul airport. How will it run it?
With the Taliban in control of Kabul’s airport after the United States completed its withdrawal, the focus will now shift from the chaotic Western evacuation operation of the past two weeks to the group’s plans for the transport hub.
The airport’s symbolism was underlined on Tuesday when the Taliban’s top spokesman stood on its runway and declared victory over the US. But what happens next remains unclear.
Read more here.
War-weary Afghans divided on Taliban rule as US forces depart
In the early hours of Tuesday, hails of gunfire filled the skies above cities across Afghanistan as the Taliban celebrated the final withdrawal of foreign forces after a 20-year US-led occupation of the country.
Just after midnight local time, US Central Command Commander, General Kenneth McKenzie, declared, “Every single US service member is now out of Afghanistan.”
With those 10 words, McKenzie brought an official end to Washington’s longest-ever foreign incursion. As the final US military plane departed Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, the Taliban looked on in triumph.
Read more here.
‘A few dozen’ French still in Afghanistan: defense ministry
France says “a few dozen” French nationals remain in Afghanistan, including some who wanted to be evacuated but could not as the last flight left Kabul.
Defense Ministry spokesman Herve Grandjean said in a news conference Tuesday that “all efforts are being done” to allow those left behind to get “a safe and orderly evacuation.” He said “that is the goal of the talks under way within the United Nations framework with the Taliban power.
UK denies pushing to leave Kabul airport gate open before blast
The United Kingdom coordinated closely with the United States and did not push to keep a gate open at Kabul airport where a suicide bomber killed 13 US troops and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said.
“We got our civilian staff out of the processing centre by Abbey Gate, but it’s just not true to suggest that, other than securing our civilian staff inside the airport, that we were pushing to leave the gate open,” Raab told Sky News on Tuesday.
Read more here.
Transcript: US completes Afghanistan withdrawal
General Frank McKenzie put the nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan into numbers at a Pentagon news briefing.
Here is a complete transcript of his address.
Afghan teenager held on his way to Kashmir
The police in Indian-administered Kashmir have arrested a 17-year-old Afghan national in the southern district of Kathua who was on his way to Kashmir without valid travel documents.
The senior superintendent of police Kathua district, R C Kotwal, told reporters the boy was apprehended while the passengers were boarded off at a mandatory COVID testing point at Lakhanpur-an entry point to Indian-administered Kashmir, near the northern state of Punjab, in Jammu region.
“Today morning, a 17-year-old boy was apprehended at the Lakhanpur where the police checkpoint is round the clock. After preliminary questioning we came to know he is an Afghan national from Kabul” the official said, adding that “the boy claimed that his brother who serves in the Afghan army is under treatment at RR hospital in Delhi”.
The official said that the boy “claimed he came to India in July to attend his brother on valid travel documents”.
Canada to take in 5,000 Afghan refugees evacuated by the US: minister
Canada said it would take in and resettle some 5,000 Afghan refugees who had been evacuated by the United States after the withdrawal of the last American troops after almost two decades of war.https://ce4dfe284c19013ed24d3cc15bda6889.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
“We’re pulling out all the stops to help as many Afghans as possible who want to make their home in Canada,” said Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino. “Over the weekend, Canada and its allies received assurances from the Taliban that Afghan citizens with travel authorization from other countries would be safely allowed to leave Afghanistan.”
Between Us: Afghanistan’s 20 Years of War
After 20 years of war, US troops have officially left Afghanistan and the Taliban has retaken power. Many are wondering: What’s next?.
“The truth is, nobody knows,” says Ali Latifi, Al Jazeera’s Afghanistan online correspondent.
“When you leave your house, you don’t know if you’ll come back home alive. That’s the legacy of this war.”
In the days leading up to foreign troops pulling out of Afghanistan, Ali takes us through the legacy of the US-led invasion and what Afghans have really been experiencing.
Isolating the Taliban could pose a threat to the whole region: Expert
Sultan Barakat, the director of the centre for conflict and humanitarian studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has told Al Jazeera that “the coming few days and months will test to the limit the strength of international diplomacy.”
“Yesterday, we saw the United Nations resolution and the discussion that happened. Overall, that was in the right direction, but we still have not learned the importance of language and communication with the Taliban,” he said.
“[They] are a very proud people who do not take well to either threats or conditions. There was a missed opportunity yesterday to set up those conditions but maybe in relation to triggers, specific targets, timeline, stepping stones that the Taliban should be very clear about,” he said.
Barakat also said that “the real issue that is going to face the Taliban now is the issue of financial flow.”
“Isolating them entirely could only lead to a worse situation and I can think of many threats to the region, and maybe to the world, that could come as a result of isolating them entirely. For example, in order to raise funds, they could sell the weapons that they inherited from the United States and those weapons could then spread across the region,” he said.
