“Pakistan continues to support peace talks, while maintaining ties with the Afghan Taliban,” US Department of State Office of the Inspector General noted in its latest quarterly report on Afghanistan.

“According to the DIA, Pakistan’s strategic security objectives in Afghanistan almost certainly continue to be countering Indian influence and mitigating spillover into the Pakistani territory,” the report said.

The report for the quarter April 1 to June 30 said the Pakistani government is concerned that a civil war in Afghanistan would have destabilising effects on Pakistan, including an influx of refugees and providing a potential safe haven for anti-Pakistan militants, A report by The Tribune said adding that during the quarter, financial contributions to the Afghan Taliban increased in the Pakistan border regions, according to media reports, citing eyewitness sources. Solicitation efforts traditionally targeted mosques, but Afghan Taliban militants now openly visit the bazaar areas in nearby Pakistani towns, it said.

“The militants typically solicit contributions of USD 50 or more from shopkeepers. Local residents told reporters that solicitation efforts were now commonplace in the towns and cities of Quetta, Kuchlak Bypass, Pashtun Abad, Ishaq Abad and Farooqia,” the report said.

According to the report, the DIA, citing media reports, said that Iran welcomes the withdrawal of US and coalition forces from Afghanistan but “almost certainly” remains concerned about the resulting instability in Afghanistan.

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Ghani mysteriously fled to United Arab Emirates after Taliban militants retook Afghanistan’s capital, almost two decades, last Sunday. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates government said in a statement that he is in the country from where he posted the message on social media.

In the video, he reiterated that he left the country to avoid bloodshed. “I also wanted to prevent Afghanistan from becoming like Syria and Yemen, and avert dreadful disaster of ‘being hanged’ had he remained in office. I had the country with any money,” he said in the video.

Ghani served as President of Afghanistan between September 2014 and August 2021. On 15 August 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and he fled the country to the United Arab Emirates. Ghani was first elected on 20 September 2014 and was re-elected on 28 September in the 2019 presidential election. He was announced the winner after a protracted process in February 2020 and was sworn in for a second term on 9 March 2020. An anthropologist by education, he previously served as Minister of Finance and the Chancellor of Kabul University.

Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Ghani was a professor of anthropology at numerous institutions (mostly Johns Hopkins University), and later started working with the World Bank. As the Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan’s attempted economic recovery after the collapse of the Taliban government.

He is the co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization set up in 2005 to improve the ability of states to serve their citizens. In 2005 he gave a TED talk, in which he discussed how to rebuild a broken state such as Afghanistan.

He is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, an independent initiative hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. In 2013 he was ranked 50th in an online poll to name the world’s top 100 intellectuals conducted by Foreign Policy magazine and second in a similar poll run by Prospect magazine.

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Videos and images went viral from Afghanistan that people desperately attempting to leave Kabul rushing toward a C-17 and clinging to its side.

A separate video showed what appeared to be two people falling from a military plane as it flew out of Kabul In a statement, the Air Force said that a C-17 aircraft landed at Kabul’s airport on Monday and was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians,” Reuters report said that Air Force’s office of Special Investigation was reviewing information about the aircraft and the “loss of civilian lives- to include video documentation and the source of social media posts.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible,” Air force spokesperson said in a statement.

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In a tweet tagging minister, CM Capt wrote, “Urge @DrSJaishankar, MEA, GoI, to arrange for immediate evacuation of all Indians, including around 200 Sikhs, stuck in a Gurudwara in Afghanistan after the #Taliban takeover. My govt is willing to extend any help needed to ensure their safe evacuation. @MEAIndia”

There is mayhem in the country after Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, almost 20 years after being ousted by a US-led military coalition and locals are attempting to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. A video in which people were seen attempting to enter planes forcibly to flee the country has gone viral on the social media.  In this chaos, at least five people reported dead.

Meanwhile, India is trying to evacuate hundreds of its officials and citizens from Kabul, officials said.

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The Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, almost 20 years after being ousted by a US-led military coalition and locals are attempting to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. A video of the incident has gone viral on the social media.

Media reports state that US troops, who have taken over the airport as evacuations out of the city continue, had reportedly fired in the air to scatter the crowds earlier on Monday morning.

Reuters news agency puts the death toll higher, with one witness saying he had seen the bodies of five people being carried to a vehicle. Another said it was unclear whether the victims had been shot or killed in a stampede.

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