Afghanistan News LIVE Updates: US Prez Biden Decides to Stick to Aug 31 Withdrawal Deadline.....

 Afghanistan News LIVE Updates: US Prez Biden Decides to Stick to Aug 31 Withdrawal Deadline.....

Afghanistan News LIVE Updates: Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Tuesday addressed a press conference in which he said that the Taliban are committed to resolving the problem in Panjshir peacefully. He also asked the US to leave Afghanistan by August 31. “We will not extend the deadline for the presence of US troops in Afghanistan. They are capable of evacuating their citizens and troops by August 31,” Mujahid said in a media briefing in Kabul.

The Taliban have appointed Sakhaullah as acting head of education, Abdul Baqi as acting head of higher education, Sadr Ibrahim as acting interior minister, Gul Agha as finance minister, Mullah Shirin as Kabul governor, Hamdullah Nomani as Kabul mayor and Najibullah as intelligence chief, Pajhwok Afghan News reported.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s ‘acting’ President Amrullah Saleh has highlighted the dire “humanitarian situation” in Andarab valley of the northern Baghlan province and accused the Taliban of committing human rights violations in the region. This comes as clashes were reported between the Taliban and resistance forces in the Andarab region.

“Talibs aren’t allowing food and fuel to get into Andarab valley. The humanitarian situation is dire. Thousands of women and children have fled to the mountains. Since the last two days Talibs abduct children and elderly and use them as shields to move around or do house search,” Saleh tweeted.

Only God will one day evacuate my soul from here but still my remains will reunite with the soil, Afghanistan’s vice president Amrullah Saleh said as experts believe that the Panjshir Valley, which is the final major centre of resistance to the Taliban, may fall too. “The resistance for the moment is just verbal because the Taliban have not yet tried to enter the Panjshir,” Afghan specialist Gilles Dorronsoro from Sorbonne University in Paris told AFP.

Saleh, a key powerbroker under the Western-backed governments of the last two decades, and Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, have both taken refuge in the area and called for an uprising against the Taliban. The insurgent group has warned that there would be “consequences” if the United States and its allies try to remain in Afghanistan beyond next week, as Washington ramped up its efforts to evacuate tens of thousands of people desperate to flee.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Health has ordered a 14-day mandatory institutional quarantine for people arriving from Afghanistan to India. Those being evacuated from the war-torn country will have to stay for two weeks at an ITBP camp in Delhi due to Covid-19 pandemic. “Any person tested positive or detected as symptomatic shall be shifted to identified Covid-19 dedicated Covid care centre or Covid hospital in Delhi,” said the health ministry.

Earlier in the day, union minister Hardeep Puri was seen carrying three ‘swaroops’ of Guru Granth Sahib out of Delhi airport after a special Air India plane carrying 44 Afghan Sikhs landed in Delhi from Dushanbe. Senior BJP leaders V Muraleedharan and RP Singh were present too. A group of 77 people was evacuated from Kabul and brought to Dushanbe on an Indian Air Force aircraft.

Meanwhile, Nilofar Bayat, captain of Afghanistan’s wheelchair basketball team and a women’s rights activist, fled for her life when the Taliban took over, seeking safety in Spain where she hopes to soon be back on the court. Speaking to reporters in the northern city of Bilbao just days after arriving on a Spanish military plane, this 28-year-old athlete spoke of her shock at how quickly the Taliban swept into the capital Kabul and of her struggle to get out.

“I really want the UN and all countries to help Afghanistan.. because the Taliban are the same as they were 20 years ago,” she said. “If you see Afghanistan now, it’s all men, there are no women because they don’t accept woman as part of society.”

After a nerve-wracking escape, she and her husband Ramesh, who plays for Afghanistan’s national basketball team, landed at an airbase just outside Madrid on Friday and are now starting a new life in Bilbao.

Thousands of troops have poured back into the country to oversee the chaotic airlift of foreigners and Afghans from Kabul airport, and pressure is mounting on US President Joe Biden to extend an August 31 deadline for full withdrawal.

Biden and his Group of Seven counterparts — several of whom are pushing him to leave soldiers at the airport to keep it open — will meet Tuesday, with coordination on Afghanistan and how to handle the hardline Islamist Taliban atop the agenda.

“The goal is to get as many people out as fast as possible,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “The focus is on trying to do this as best we can, by the end of the month.”