Afghanistan Kabul to shift power to transitional administration after Taliban enter city live updates

Sweden will evacuate all its embassy staff from Kabul on Sunday, public service broadcaster Swedish Radio reported, citing sources.

There are conflicting reports as to whether Taliban insurgents have already entered Kabul but they are massed at the gates of the city having taken control of all of Afghanistan’s major cities apart from the capital.

The expected transition to a Taliban-led administration in the coming days has sparked fears over the level of rights and freedoms to be granted women.

Last month, fighters from the group walked into the offices of Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave, explaining that male relatives could take their place.

Speaking live on the BBC, Taliban Spokesman Suhail Shaheen said women “will have access to education and work” and leave their homes without male accompaniment.

However, a number of “horror stories” have emerged from areas that have fallen to Taliban insurgents in recent days.

The Guardian’s Women report Afghanistan project features a number of women describing their fears that the freedoms won since 2001 will be crushed.

Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday and sought the unconditional surrender of the central government, marking the end of the west’s “20-year experiment at remaking Afghanistan”.

AP reports:

In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the US and Nato over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

Instead, the Taliban swiftly defeated, co-opted or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the US military.

The beleaguered central government, meanwhile, hopes for an interim administration, but increasingly had few cards to play. Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.

Helicopters buzzed overhead, some apparently evacuating personnel at the US embassy. Several other western missions were also preparing to get staff out.

Taliban spokesman Shaheen says: “We will respect rights of women … our policy is that women will have access to education and work, to wear the hijab.”

He restated the Taliban’s position that “no one should leave the country … we need all the talents and capacity, we need all of us to stay in the country and participate”.

A senior US official says there are no current reports of Taliban forces entering Kabul, reports Reuters.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen is live on the BBC. He said: “We are awaiting a peaceful transition of power … we seek inclusive Afghan government where all Afghans will have participation.”

On whether we can expect to see Sharia law instituted in Afghanistan over the coming days, the Taliban spokesman said: “Of course, we want an Islamic government.”

The Guardian’s foreign correspondent, Luke Harding, has interviewed Sayed â€" an Afghan resident â€" who spoke from Kabul this morning as Taliban forces entered the city:

“People are afraid. They are fearful for their families, their wives and their daughters especially. A few residents in Kabul with links to the Taliban are happy. But the majority are really afraid.

“This morning I was out an about in the city. I saw women crying by the side of the road. People were running, with everyone trying to find a vehicle to get home. There were no taxis. Before a ride would cost $2. Now the prices have gone up five times and the taxis don’t take anyone.

“I heard some gunfire a few hours ago. Now the city is pretty quiet. Everyone is holed up in their homes, the shops and banks which were busy earlier are mostly closed. Schoolchildren were due to take examinations today. These are not happening.

“The Taliban arrived this morning on the outskirts of Kabul. A few are already inside, talking to the people, without weapons for now. They are said to have taken Pul-e-Charkhi prison [the biggest in Afghanistan] and let all the prisoners out. The Taliban flag is flying in some districts of Kabul including in Babur garden, a historic district where the Mughal emperor Babur is buried.

“In district seven fighters have surrounded the police station, I heard. They have told the police to give up their weapons. I’m sceptical about the Taliban’s claim that no one will be harmed. We know what will happen next. They will start looking for ‘traitors’ â€" anyone who served with the Afghan military, or who worked with Nato forces and the Americans.

“They will also target the houses of rich businessmen in Kabul, asking them how they made their money, and were able to build a four- or five-storey property. Meanwhile, the situation for ordinary Afghans is terrible. Last week, the price for a packet of flour was 1,700 Afghanis ($25). Today it is 2,500 Afghanis ($35).

“Some people say the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has left the city already. Others say he is still here and plans to resign at 5pm today, with the Taliban due to move in and take over at 6pm today, local time. We don’t know which version is true. At the moment we are waiting to see what happens’.

“We are in a bad situation. I have no money and four children â€" boys aged three, five and 14 and a 12-year-old daughter. I don’t have any money to escape, the borders are now shut, and the Taliban have taken Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad. I may try and lie low with my father-in-law for a couple of days. But after that what?”

As the fighting across Afghanistan intensifies, the UN has warned that 390,000 could be displaced across the country.

The United Nations Assistance Mission has warned that without a significant de-escalation in violence, Afghanistan is on course to witness the highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since the UN’s records began.

This video taken in the capital, Kabul, roughly an hour ago shows extreme traffic disruption as concerned people rush to and from their homes.

Obaidullah Rahimi Mashwani (@IamObaidRahimi)

Capital Kabul right now, Traffic blocked, everyone is in a hurry and are rushing to their homes.#Kabul #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/QqDXwUm5c7

August 15, 2021

The Afghan journalist Bilal Sawary has told BBC Radio 4 the imminent transition from Ghani’s government to a Taliban-led administration is “a chaotic ending to years of massive investment of blood and treasure”.

Philippa Thomas (@PhilippaBBC)

“A chaotic ending to years of massive investment of blood and treasure”. “We will have to see how the transition takes place”. @bsarwary tells @BBCRadio4 #kabul #Afghan

August 15, 2021

CNN’s chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour, has questioned if today’s events reflect the fact that the initial intervention was a “reckless American gamble”.

Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour)

Hearing Taliban entering Kabul takes me back to Nov 2001 watching them flee Kabul at the tip of America’s spear, bringing hope to women, children and all who want peace, education and freedom from fundamentalist terror. Now progress and hope die again. Reckless American gamble?

August 15, 2021

CNN’s national security correspondent, Kylie Atwood, reports that the US will be withdrawing all of its embassy and security personnel over the next 72 hours.

US president Joe Biden earlier authorised an additional 1,000 US troops for deployment to Afghanistan.

There are roughly 5,000 US troops on the ground helping to ensure what Biden earlier called an “orderly and safe drawdown” of American and allied personnel.

UK PM Boris Johnson will recall parliament this week to discuss the situation in Afghanistan

Our deputy political editor, Rowena Mason, has the latest update on the UK’s rapidly developing political response to the crisis:

Pope Francis has called for a dialogue in Afghanistan so that the country’s “martyred population” can live in peace and security.

Ali Ahmad Jilali, a US-based academic and former Afghan interior minister, has been tipped to head an interim administration, Reuters report based on diplomatic sources.

Afghan official says government troops have surrendered Bagram air base to the Taliban; the base is home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, including both Taliban and Islamic State insurgents.

AP reports:

An Afghan official says forces at Bagram airbase, home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, have surrendered to the Taliban.

Bagram district chief Darwaish Raufi said Sunday that the surrender handed the one-time American base over to the insurgents.

The prison housed both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters.

It came as the Taliban entered the outskirts of Kabul.

The Taliban are poised to take control of Kabul with insurgents appearing to have met little or no resistance entering the Afghan capital.

US diplomats are being ferried from the embassy to Kabul airport by helicopter in what our foreign correspondent, Luke Harding, calls “deeply humiliating scenes for the Biden administration”.

You can read his full report here:

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