Afghanistan crisis: UAE says Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is in the country; Jalalabad protest turns violent; and more

Ghani fled Afghanistan just as the Taliban approached Kabul.

According to AP, the statement carried by the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency on Wednesday did not say where Ghani was in the country. It quoted the country’s Foreign Ministry in a one-sentence statement.

Ex-president Hamid Karzai meets senior Taliban leader

Amid efforts by the Taliban to set up a government following their dramatic takeover of Afghanistan, a Taliban commander and senior leader of the Haqqani Network militant group, Anas Haqqani, met former president Hamid Karzai for talks on Wednesday.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets Anas Haqqani, Taliban commander and senior leader of the Haqqani Network militant group, in Kabul. (Twitter/@TOLOnews)

According to news agency Reuters, Karzai was accompanied by the old government’s main peace envoy, Abdullah Abdullah, in the meeting, said the Taliban official, who declined to be identified.

The Haqqani Network is an important faction of the Taliban, who captured the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. The network, based on the border with Pakistan, was accused over recent years of some of the most deadly militant attacks in Afghanistan.

Evacuation from Kabul airport continues

Despite promises of safety by the Taliban, more than 2,200 diplomats and other civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a Western security official told Reuters on Wednesday.

“We are continuing at a very fast momentum, logistics show no glitches as of now,” the official told Reuters. However, it is not yet clear when civilian flights would resume.

Taliban fighters patrol in Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. (AP)

The official said those getting out included diplomatic staff, foreign security staff and Afghans who worked for embassies, but he did not give a breakdown of how many Afghans were among the more than 2,200 people to leave.

Anti-Taliban protest in Jalalabad leaves two dead

At least two people were killed and a dozen wounded after shots were fired at the protest against the removal of the Afghan flag by the Taliban in the eastern city of Jalalabad, Al Jazeera reported.

#Taliban firing on protesters in Jalalabad city and beaten some video journalists. #Afghanidtan pic.twitter.com/AbM2JHg9I2

— Pajhwok Afghan News (@pajhwok) August 18, 2021

Dozens of people gathered in the city to raise the national flag a day before Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the end of British rule in 1919. They lowered the Taliban flag — a white banner with an Islamic inscription — that the militants have raised in the areas they captured.

Video footage later showed the Taliban firing into the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd. Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, said he and a TV cameraman from another agency were beaten by the Taliban as they tried to cover the unrest.

‘Actions not words count’: UK PM Johnson tells the Taliban

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Taliban would be judged on their actions, not their words, after they sought to convince the world they would not seek revenge after seizing Afghanistan.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the debate on the situation in Afghanistan inside parliament in London, as lawmakers attend an emergency sitting three days after the Afghanistan capital Kabul fell to the Taliban. (House of Commons via AP)

While addressing parliament, which was recalled from its summer break to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, Johnson ruled out any resumption of military action in the country and instead called on the United Nations to lead a humanitarian effort.

“We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access, and the rights of girls to receive an education,” Johnson was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Taliban destroy statue of Shiite foe Abdul Ali Mazari from 90s civil war

The Taliban have blown up the statue of a Shiite militia leader who had fought against them during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, according to photos circulating on social media Wednesday.

Taliban fighters pose for photograph in Wazir Akbar Khan in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. (AP)

The statue depicted Abdul Ali Mazari, a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the Islamic militants seized power from rival warlords. Mazari was a champion of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority, Shiites who were persecuted under the Sunni Taliban’s earlier rule.

The statue stood in the central Bamyan province, where the Taliban infamously blew up two massive 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in 2001, shortly before the US-led invasion that drove them from power. The Taliban claimed the Buddhas violated Islam’s prohibition on idolatry.