Afghanistan’s star legspinner Rashid Khan urged world leaders to not leave the country in chaos, saying they want peace and not destruction. “Dear World Leaders! My country is in chaos,thousand of innocent people, including children & women, get martyred everyday, houses & properties being destructed.Thousand families displaced. Don’t leave us in chaos. Stop killing Afghans & destroying Afghanistan. We want peace” he wrote on twitter.
The Taliban have appeared largely indifferent to peace overtures, and seem intent on a military victory to crown a return to power after their ouster 20 years ago in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
As fighting raged, tens of thousands of people were on the move inside the country, with families fleeing newly captured Taliban cities with tales of brutal treatment at the hands of the insurgents.
In the northern city of Kunduz that was captured by the Taliban over the weekend, residents said shops had begun to reopen in the centre as insurgents focused their attention on government forces who had retreated to the airport.
India will evacuate its diplomats from its consulate in Mazar E Sharif, Afghanistan, as well as nationals in the area as Taliban seized a sixth Afghan provincial capital on Monday following a weekend blitz across the north that saw urban centres fall in quick succession and the government struggle to keep the militants at bay.
Insurgents entered Aibak without a fight after community elders pleaded with officials to spare the city from more violence following weeks of clashes on the outskirts, said Sefatullah Samangani, deputy governor of Samangan province. “The governor accepted and withdrew all the forces from the city,” Samangani added, saying the Taliban were now in “full control”.
