{"id":29689,"date":"2021-08-16T12:43:57","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T08:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/?p=29689"},"modified":"2021-08-16T12:43:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T08:13:57","slug":"taliban-take-control-of-kabul-and-presidential-palace-ashraf-ghani-flees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/29689\/taliban-take-control-of-kabul-and-presidential-palace-ashraf-ghani-flees\/","title":{"rendered":"Taliban take control of Kabul and presidential palace, Ashraf Ghani flees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Taliban forces are assuming control of the Afghan capital Kabul and have taken control of the presidential palace, after the country’s president Ashraf Ghani fled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

One of the Taliban\u2019s units shared pictures of the Palace interior \u2013 seemingly intact, but empty and abandoned by Afghan officials \u2013 on an official Telegram account. A video posted on social media a few hours before showed fighters arriving at the Presidential Palace in Kabul.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said earlier that its forces would begin entering areas of the city where the government officials and security forces had abandoned their posts, according to the CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning the Islamic Emirate released a statement that our forces were outside Kabul city and we did not want to enter Kabul through military ways,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, now we are getting reports that the district police offices are evacuated, police have left their job of ensuring the security, also the ministries are\u00a0emptied and the security personnel of the Kabul administration has fled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, in order to avoid any looting and burglary in Kabul and\u00a0stop opportunists from harming the people, the Islamic Emirate has advised its forces to enter those areas of the city where the enemy has left and the areas are at risk of looting and burglary,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Social media posts and witness accounts suggest Taliban presence within the city is growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur forces are quietly entering the city, they won\u2019t bother anyone, government employees both civilian and military should be assured that no one will harm them, no Mujahid is allowed to enter people\u2019s houses, or hurt or bother anyone,\u201d the groups spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

The Taliban takeover happens amid a massive evacuation effort by the U.S. and NATO allies of their citizens and support staff within the country.<\/p>\n

Earlier reports suggested a transitional government would be formed but the departure of President Ghani seems to have scuppered those efforts.<\/p>\n

A meeting, which was expected to happen between a high-level Afghan government delegation and Taliban in Doha, now \u201cmay not happen,\u201d a source with knowledge of the intra-Afghan talks told CNN on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and former President Hamid Karzai have established a Coordinating Council to \u201cbetter manage the affairs related to peace and peaceful transfer,\u201d Karzai said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taliban forces are assuming control of the Afghan capital Kabul and have taken control of the presidential palace, after the country’s president Ashraf Ghani fled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. One of the Taliban\u2019s units shared pictures of the Palace interior \u2013 seemingly intact, but empty and abandoned by Afghan officials \u2013 on an official Telegram account. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[7100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}