Live updates Afghans defy Taliban rule with protests State Dept ramps up evacuation processing

Afghans waving the national flag staged protests in Kabul and other cities Thursday, challenging Taliban fighters in scattered demonstrations marking the anniversary of independence from British rule.

In the capital, men and women carried the black, red and green flag of the Afghan Republic, chanting, “Our flag, our identity,” according to videos posted online. In Asadabad in Konar province, several people were killed after the Taliban fired on a similar rally, Reuters reported, quoting a witness.

The protests raised the specter of wider popular opposition to the group, which swept to power across Afghanistan in a stunning offensive this month and is pushing now to consolidate power and assume the reins of government.

Meanwhile, the State Department said it is surging consular officers to Kabul to help with evacuation efforts.

Here’s what to know

Afghanistan’s economy faces calamity in the aftermath of the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, with the United States freezing the country’s financial reserves, residents unable to withdraw their money from bank accounts and billions of dollars of international aid put on hold.

A senior Taliban commander has said that Afghanistan will probably be governed by sharia law now that the group is back in power.

Since Saturday, 7,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan on flights operated by the U.S. military.

The United Nations’ food agency says millions in Afghanistan face severe hunger amid an extreme drought; many fearful residents are staying home from work; and numerous aid agencies have suspended activities because of the security situation.

Key updateU.S. doesn’t know number of Americans in Afghanistan but will evacuate those who wish to leave, Sullivan says Link copied

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS and NBC Thursday that the United States does not know the total number of Americans in Afghanistan, but reiterated the administration’s promise to remove all those who wished to leave.

Asked by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell how many Americans remained in Afghanistan, Sullivan said the government does not have a “precise answer.”

“That’s because we ask every American who comes to Afghanistan to register with the U.S. Embassy. But when people leave, they often don’t deregister, and even some who come never register in the first place,” he said.

U.S. officials are trying to reach all Americans in their database via multiple means of communication, he said.

“We will get any American who wants to get to the airport and who we get in contact with who says, ‘I want to get out and get on a plane,’ we will make that happen,” Sullivan told Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News.

A day after President Biden said U.S. troops might stay in Afghanistan beyond the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline if U.S. citizens remained who wanted to be evacuated, Sullivan voiced optimism that the administration would finish flying American civilians out before that date.

“We can move thousands of people every single day between now and the end of the month,” he told O’Donnell. “We have plenty more seats on flights than we believe that there are possibly Americans still in Afghanistan, and there is plenty of time to get to the airport.”

He told NBC that the United States had made contact with the Taliban and “is working at the moment to get Americans and Afghans at risk to the airport,” but added, “we can’t count on anything.”

The Taliban has established checkpoints on routes to the airport and has harassed and attacked Afghans who tried to reach it in recent days.

Sullivan acknowledged that the massive evacuation underway is “a risky operation” and that the United States was worried about the potential for a terrorist attack by a group like the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan.

“We will keep working to minimize the risks and maximize the number of people on planes,” he said on NBC.

Biden administration faces big choices as economic calamity hangs over AfghanistanLink copied

Afghanistan’s economy faces calamity in the aftermath of the Taliban capture of Kabul, with the United States freezing the country’s financial reserves, residents unable to withdraw their money from bank accounts and billions of dollars of international aid put on hold.

The dangerous economic climate poses a major dilemma for the Biden administration as it tries to maintain leverage over the Taliban without exacerbating the severe economic conditions that threaten to immiserate millions of Afghan citizens. Biden administration officials are monitoring the situation closely and have said they will resume the flow of humanitarian aid, but they have not signaled how they plan to proceed.

Senior officials in Afghanistan’s toppled government have warned in recent days that parts of the nation’s economy are on the brink of devastation, given the country’s high dependence on international funding. Wahid Majrooh, acting minister of public health in Afghanistan, told The Washington Post that he is “deeply, deeply concerned” about cuts in funding for the national health-care system â€" and that he’s already facing shortages of critical medical supplies.

G-7 ministers pledge to do ‘everything possible’ to evacuate vulnerable people from AfghanistanLink copied

Leaders of the Group of Seven nations will continue to do “everything possible to evacuate vulnerable persons” from Afghanistan and called on the Taliban to guarantee safe passage to the Kabul airport, Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, said Thursday.

Raab chaired a meeting of the G-7 foreign and development ministers Thursday to discuss developments in Afghanistan.

The officials “affirmed our commitment in particular to the urgent need for the cessation of violence, respect for human rights including for women, children and minorities, inclusive negotiations about the future of Afghanistan, and the need for all parties to respect international humanitarian law,” Raab said in a statement.

The group was “deeply concerned” by reports of Taliban fighters taking violent retribution in parts of Afghanistan.

The ministers will work with partners to “seek to secure an inclusive political settlement, enable life-saving humanitarian assistance and support in Afghanistan and the region, and prevent any further loss of life in Afghanistan and to the international community from terrorism,” Raab’s statement said.

The officials discussed the need to cooperate on evacuations from Afghanistan, according to Raab. They asked the Taliban to guarantee safe passage to foreign nationals and Afghans to the Kabul airport, which has been flooded this week by people seeking to escape the country. Taliban fighters have harassed and attacked Afghans attempting to reach the airport.

The ministers also discussed “the importance of the international community providing safe and legal resettlement routes,” the statement said.

Some G-7 nations, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have pledged in recent days to take thousands of Afghan refugees. But President Emmanuel Macron of France â€" another G-7 member â€" has called for Europe to “protect ourselves against significant irregular migration flows” after the Taliban takeover.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian tweeted Thursday that France’s top priorities for the G-7 were to accelerate coordination on evacuations from Kabul and to “strengthen our cooperation to anticipate the consequences of the Afghan crisis.”

Key updateState Department says 6,000 people processed and will soon depart Kabul airportLink copied

The State Department said Thursday that it has processed a group of 6,000 people who will soon board planes out of Kabul’s international airport.

That amounts to an increase compared with previous daily evacuation numbers, as the department surges consular officers to Kabul, Qatar and Kuwait to help with the massive airlift, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

On previous days this week, the United States processed 2,000 people per day for evacuation as U.S. citizens and Afghans seeking to flee the country complained of chaos around the airport and Taliban checkpoints preventing them from getting to their flights.

Price said the department is “aware of congestion around the airport” and is “working closely with the Department of Defense to facilitate safe and orderly access for consular processing on the airport compound.”

He said the department was nearly doubling the number of consular officers in Kabul, but did not say how many would be deployed in total.

German broadcaster says Taliban killed a relative of one of its journalists in AfghanistanLink copied

Taliban fighters killed a relative of a journalist working for a German broadcaster Wednesday â€" an ominous signal that the Taliban was not following through on pledges to avoid retribution and to respect the media.

The relative was shot by Taliban fighters who were going house-to-house to hunt for the Deutsche Welle (DW) journalist in western Afghanistan, according to DW. The journalist now works in Germany. Other family members were able to flee from the fighters.

"The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban in Herat yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves,” DW’s director general, Peter Limbourg, said. “It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organized searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!”

The Taliban seriously injured another of his relatives. They have also raided the homes of at least three of the organization’s journalists, DW reported. Two men also shot and killed a translator who frequently contributed to the German newspaper Die Zeit, according to DW.

DW and other major German media organizations published an open letter Sunday calling on the German government to establish an emergency visa program for their Afghan staff.

"They too have shared our belief in the free press as an indispensable element of a stable, peaceful, balanced democracy â€" a value that the German government strongly supported in Afghanistan over the past 20 years," the letter read.

DW has sent names and contact information of staff members to the German Foreign Ministry so that they can be put on evacuation flights. But reaching the airport â€" and getting on planes once people are there â€" has proved difficult in recent days, as the Taliban have set up checkpoints on access routes and attacked or harassed Afghans on the way to the airport.

Life in Kabul under the Taliban: Scenes of protest and prayerLink copied

As Afghanistan marked the anniversary of its 1919 independence from British rule on Thursday, the streets of Kabul looked different than in years past: Taliban fighters, now in control of the country, drove along the capital’s thoroughfares to mark a new sort of independence.

“We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan,” the Taliban said, according to the Associated Press.

Still, as the Islamist militant group hailed the day as cause for celebration, others saw it as an opportunity for resistance. Kabul residents took to the streets, waving the Afghan flag to protest the Taliban’s rule.

The Taliban says it will rule under sharia law. What does that mean?Link copied

The return of Taliban rule to Afghanistan will mean a return to sharia law, the group’s interpretation of Islamic religious law, a senior Taliban commander declared on Wednesday after the Islamist militant group swept the country, ousting the U.S.-backed government.

The takeover has sparked fear and speculation about the future of Afghanistan.

“There will be no democratic system at all,” Taliban commander Waheedullah Hashimi said in an interview with Reuters. “We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.”

Here are some of the basics.

With the Taliban now in control, here’s what Afghans are seeing in KabulLink copied

A billboard torn down. A defiant schoolyard song. A line of women protesting. A near-empty cafe with no music.

Amid the swift and definitive Taliban takeover of Kabul, Afghans took out their cellphones, filming the chaos of the group’s arrival, the changes that marked their presence and the eerie calm that came next.

In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the country after 20 years of war, the militant group known for its brutal treatment of women and strict religious interpretations is once again in charge of Afghanistan.

Chaos gripped the international airport as masses of people tried to flee. But millions stayed in Kabul, unsure of what comes next.

Biden, Harris meet with national security team to discuss AfghanistanLink copied

Biden and Vice President Harris met Thursday morning with their national security team to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, according to the White House.

National security officials briefed Biden and Harris on the progress being made in evacuating U.S. nationals and Afghan allies from Kabul “as quickly as possible,” noting that “every day we operate, troops on the ground are at risk,” a White House official said.

Since Saturday, 7,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan on flights operated by the U.S. military.

Biden, Harris and the national security officials also discussed “their focus on monitoring for any potential terrorist threats in Afghanistan, including from ISIS-K,” the White House said. ISIS-K refers to the Islamic State in Khorasan, the Afghanistan branch of the Islamist militant group.

The meeting was attended by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines; CIA Director William J. Burns; national security adviser Jake Sullivan; acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson; Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command; and other officials.

Threat assessment prepared for U.N. warns of Taliban hunt for ‘collaborators’ in major citiesLink copied

The Taliban has stepped up its hunt for former Afghan security officials and people who may have worked with U.S. or NATO forces, according to a confidential threat assessment prepared for the United Nations and seen by The Washington Post.

The militants are going house to house, setting up checkpoints and threatening to arrest or kill relatives of “collaborators” in major cities, the Aug. 18 assessment said.

The document, produced by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a U.N.-linked intelligence support center, describes an empowered Taliban eager to seek out and interrogate or punish those affiliated with the U.S.-backed government.

At particular risk are people who were in central positions in military, police and investigative units, according to the analysis, despite a Taliban pledge this week to grant amnesty to former officials.

The fighters are using the West’s focus on evacuating foreign nationals to “search unrestrained for Afghan targets inside the cities,” the document said.

At the same time, the group is screening for individuals outside the Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans have gathered in recent days in the hopes of fleeing the country.

The Taliban has “established vehicle check points on all major roads and around major cities,” including Kabul and Jalalabad, the assessment said.

It also warned of a “worst case” scenario in which the militants close down Kabul and other cities to conduct mass arrests and public executions.

Pentagon says it’s still evacuating only 2,000 people a day from Kabul Link copied

The Pentagon spokesman said Thursday that the U.S. military has the capacity to be evacuating 5,000 to 9,000 people per day from Afghanistan â€" as soon as they have that many people approved each day for departure.

The United States has opened additional gates to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and staffed them with more consular officers to process entrants. But in the last 24-hour period, only slightly more than 2,000 people â€" including almost 300 Americans â€" made it out of Kabul safely, flying out on 12 C-17 aircraft.

“That doesn’t mean, just because you have 5,000 seats, that you can fill 5,000 seats a day,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby cautioned during a news conference Thursday morning.

The 5,000 to 9,000 figure is based on air assets that the military has available within the CENTCOM sphere, officials explained.

“Depending on the ability, the queue, those ready to fly, we bring in assets to fly them out,” said Army Major Gen. William D. “Hank” Taylor, who joined Kirby at the briefing.

“We intend to maximize each plane’s capacity,” Taylor said. “We’re prioritizing people above all else.”

Since Aug. 14, about 7,000 people have been taken out of Kabul on flights operated by the U.S. military. About 5,200 U.S. troops are at the Kabul airport, Taylor said, after more flew in over the last 24 hours.

Kirby and Taylor did not answer questions posed about what contingency plans are being made if the evacuation operation extends beyond the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, except to say that if and when the timeline is officially changed, additional conversations with the Taliban would be necessary.

But they disclosed that the military has been conducting armed F-18 flights over Kabul, in case close air support should be necessary to protect the troops stationed there and the evacuation operation.

“We’re going to do everything that we can to make sure we can protect our force … as well as protect the entire operation,” Kirby said.

Biden administration moved slowly to help Afghan refugees as it prepared to exit Link copied

The Biden administration moved slowly for months to address the plight of vulnerable Afghans who had worked for the United States even as a deadline for U.S. military withdrawal loomed, refugee advocates said â€" a lull some blamed on White House concern that the influx would invite partisan political backlash amid a rush of migrants at the southern border.

Afghans who served as interpreters, fixers and other staff for the American military and diplomats over the nearly 20-year U.S. military mission were among thousands evacuated in recent days, following the stunning collapse of the U.S.-backed government. Getting thousands more out of the country is a top priority now ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline to exit, the nation’s top military officials said Wednesday.

“We have a moral obligation to help those who helped us, and I feel the urgency deeply,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon.

UNESCO calls for protection of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage after Taliban sweeps to powerLink copied

The United Nations cultural agency called Thursday for the protection of Afghanistan’s most important cultural sites, urging respect for international law as the Taliban tightens its grip on power.

The Taliban, when it ruled Afghanistan in 2001, blew up two giant Buddha statues in the Bamian Valley â€" now a UNESCO World Heritage site. A second UNESCO site was declared in 2002 in Ghowr province, home to the ancient Minaret of Jam.

“Amid the rapidly unfolding events, and twenty years after the deliberate destruction of the Bamian Buddhas, a World Heritage site, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay calls for the preservation of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage,” the agency said in a statement.

“Any damage or loss of cultural heritage will only have adverse consequences on the prospects for lasting peace and humanitarian relief for the people of Afghanistan,” UNESCO said, adding that cultural heritage professionals and artists must be free to work in a safe environment.

“UNESCO is closely following the situation on the ground and is committed to exercising all possible efforts to safeguard the invaluable cultural heritage of Afghanistan,” the agency said.

Humanitarian organizations plead for continued flow of aid into AfghanistanLink copied

A coalition of humanitarian organizations, including several from the United Nations, issued a joint plea to international donors to keep funds flowing into Afghanistan â€" despite the Taliban takeover â€" because of the dire needs of the people.

The International Monetary Fund has suspended almost half a million dollars in planned funding under pressure from the United States, citing the lack of international recognition of the new Taliban rulers.

The United States also froze billions of dollars of Afghan reserves held in U.S. banks, further handicapping the new government. The United Nations’ food agency says millions of Afghans face severe hunger amid an extreme drought.

The humanitarian groups said they were supporting millions of people in Afghanistan and that their aid programs in the impoverished country had a shortfall of $800 million.

“We call on donors to remain steadfast in their support for humanitarian operations in Afghanistan and to support resilient livelihoods,” the statement said.

The message pointed out that for decades, aid programs have made important gains in gender equality and girls’ access to education. “Now the international community must continue to support the people of Afghanistan if those gains are not to be reversed. Humanitarian funding must be sustained,” the groups said.

The organizations, which include Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam and the main U.N. agencies, pledged to remain in the country. Hundreds of foreigners are seeking to escape Afghanistan since the Taliban overran the capital, Kabul, on Sunday.

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