Afghanistan Taliban News LIVE: Indian Embassy Shuts as Staff Readies for Evacuation; All Flights Halted at Kabul Airport.....

 Afghanistan Taliban News LIVE: Indian Embassy Shuts as Staff Readies for Evacuation; All Flights Halted at Kabul Airport.....

Afghan ambassador at UN: No time for blame game | Afghanistan’s U.N. ambassador says “there is no time for the blame game anymore.” He is urging the Security Council and secretary-general to use every means at their disposal to call for an immediate halt to violence and respect for human rights and to “prevent Afghanistan descending into a civil war and becoming a pariah state.

” Ghulam Isaczai told an emergency meeting of the U.N.’s most powerful body on Monday that he was “speaking on behalf of millions of people in Afghanistan, whose fate hangs in the balance and are faced with an extremely uncertain future,” including “millions of Afghan girls and women who are about to lose their freedom to go to school, to work and to  was not successful. It is the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we're standing before an epochal change."

Afghanistan News: Why China is Cosying Up to Taliban As They Seize Power

Afghanistan Taliban News LIVE: The Indian Embassy has been shut as the situation in Kabul worsens, sources told CNN-News18 on Monday. 

Staff is readying for evacuation, as only Afghan personnel will carry on work at the embassy, the sources added. Meanwhile, All military and civilian flights have been halted at Kabul airport, Pentagon said on Monday. India’s IAF aircraft was to land at Hindon at 9.30 PM, but it has not taken off so far in lieu of the situation, 

India will help members of Afghanistan’s tiny Sikh and Hindu community to come to India, the foreign ministry said on Monday. 

“We are in constant touch with the representatives of Afghan Sikh and Hindu communities. We will facilitate repatriation to India of those who wish to leave Afghanistan,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement. India invested millions of dollars in development projects in Afghanistan and Bagchi said the government stood by the Afghans who had partnered it in that task.

US President Joe Biden will address the nation on the situation in Afghanistan at 1.15 am IST on Tuesday.

US soldiers killed two armed men at Kabul’s airport Monday as thousands of people flocked to the terminal seeking to flee Afghanistan, a Pentagon official said.

 “In the thousands of people who were there peacefully, two guys who had weapons brandished them menacingly. They were both killed,” the official said, insisting on anonymity.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has operated a special flight which just landed in Afghanistan’s Kabul to evacuate stranded Indians, including embassy staff and their families.

Taliban takeover has plunged Afghanistan’s future into uncertainty with several countries trying to fly out their natives, while residents rush to Kabul airport in hope of leaving the country. UK’s defence secretary B Wallace has said that their country is targeting 1,200-1,500 evacuations a day and there are plans in place to ‘keep planes flowing’.

 Air India meanwhile confirmed that the Afghan airspace has been shut amid chaos at the airport and commercial flights have been suspended.

The UN Security Council, under the Presidency of India, will meet again today around 7:30 pm to discuss the grim situation in Afghanistan after Taliban’s takeover. The move comes after Russia said that it was working with other countries to hold a discussion on complete military takeover of the country by insurgents. 

Russia is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with the United States, Britain, France, and China. It remains unclear how the Taliban would be regarded by the United Nations should the movement declare itself the legitimate power.

As president Ashraf Ghani fled the country, Afghanistan’s vice president Amrullah Saleh said that he was in “his soil and with the people; for a cause and purpose”. He added that opposing “Pakistan-backed oppression and brutal dictatorship” is their legitimacy. UK prime minister Boris Johnson, meanwhile, said that UK is working with its partners to send a clear message through NATO meet on Friday that “nobody should bilaterally recognise the Taliban”.

Sources told News18 that the situation in the war-torn country is “extremely bad” and posts have been deployed by Taliban. “Roads towards airport almost closed,” a source said. Chaotic scenes were witnessed at Kabul airport as people tried to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban retook the country in little more than a week. This came after US President Joe Biden began the final withdrawal of troops, closing America’s longest war.

A visibly upset woman, who arrived in Delhi on Monday from the war-torn nation, said that the Taliban are going to kill them. “I can’t believe the world abandoned Afghanistan. Our friends are going to get killed. They (Taliban) are going to kill us. Our women are not going to have any more rights,” she said.

The United States led more than 65 nations in urging the resurgent Taliban to let Afghans leave the country, warning of accountability for any abuses. “The United States joins the international community in affirming that Afghans and international citizens who wish to depart must be allowed to do so,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter as the State Department released a statement signed by its close allies. “Those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan bear responsibility — and accountability — for the protection of human life,” the joint statement said.

The country also lowered the flag on its embassy in Kabul and has relocated almost all staff to the airport, where US forces are taking over air traffic control, officials said Sunday. “We are completing a series of steps to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of US and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights,” the Pentagon and State Department said in a joint statement.