Pressure had grown for Biden to extend his deadline, which he set well before the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan on August 15. It remains unclear whether the airlift from Kabul's international airport can get all American citizens and at-risk Afghans who fear for their lives out be then.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday his group will accept "no extensions" to the deadline. He says life is returning to normal in the country but chaos at the airport remains a problem. Many Afghans are desperate to flee the Taliban takeover of the country.
In a presser, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid in a presser said, "The US should not encourage Afganistan doctors, engineer and elite to leave Afghanistan. We want peace and stability and evacuate foreign people by August 31 but we don't want Afghans to leave."
A week earlier spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had promised the Taliban would honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law, without elaborating.
The evacuees were received at the Indira Gandhi International Airport by Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and V Muraleedharan.
India on Tuesday brought back 78 people, including 25 of its nationals and a number of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus from Dushanbe, and three copies of the Guru Granth Sahib, a day after they were evacuated from Kabul.
As of Thursday morning, within the last 24 hours, 25 U.S. military C-17s, three U.S. military C-130s, and then a combination of 61 charter commercial and other military flights departed Kabul.
London's powerlessness, so far, to change Washington's course also is a blow to the U.K. hopes that an assertive “Global Britain” will be a major global player in the wake of its exit from the European Union.
According to reports, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)'s cadre broke into celebratory firing welcoming their colleagues to Rawalakot in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Biden asserted, without a full explanation, that U.S. forces have managed to improve access to the airport for Americans and others seeking to get on flights. He suggested that the perimeter had been extended, widening a “safe zone.”
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan two weeks before the United States was set to complete its troop withdrawal.
The Taliban swept across Afghanistan this month, seizing control of almost all key towns and cities, including Kabul, following the withdrawal of the US forces from the country.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said last week that the Indian authorities are in touch with a group of Sikhs taking shelter in a gurudwara near Kabul, and that they will be brought to India as soon as possible.
The US is also evacuating the citizens of NATO allies and its partners, including their diplomats, embassy staff who remain in Afghanistan and to get them back to their homes as well.
Joe Biden on Sunday refused to rule out possible sanctions against the Taliban after the group's takeover of Afghanistan last week.
At the one-week mark since the Taliban completed its takeover of the country, U.S. officials expressed growing concern about the threat to the evacuation from the Islamic State group. That worry comes on top of obstacles to that mission from the Taliban, as well as U.S. government bureaucratic problems.
India on Sunday evacuated 168 passengers including 107 Indian nationals through Indian Air Force's C-17 aircraft that landed at IAF's Hindon Air Base.
I will convene G7 leaders on Tuesday for urgent talks on the situation in Afghanistan, says UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Afghanistan Ambassador to India Farid Mamundzay also appreciated the words of sympathy and support messages from all "Indian friends" and the diplomatic missions in New Delhi over the suffering of Afghans in the past few weeks.
US diplomatic cables revealed one Afghan Vice President flew to Dubai with 38 million pounds ($51 million) in cash, and that drug traffickers and corrupt officials were shifting 170 million pounds ($231 million) a week out of a country where average incomes were scarcely 430 pounds ($585) a year, the report said.
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