Live updates Taliban strikes conciliatory tone consolidates power as de facto leader returns to country

At a wide-ranging news conference in Kabul on Tuesday, Taliban leaders in Afghanistan offered conciliatory messages, met with skepticism by experts, promising not to discriminate against women or seek to control the media, and suggesting that those who worked with the previous government and allied forces would be “pardoned.”

Taliban co-founder and de facto leader Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in the country Tuesday for the first time in more than a decade, returning to the group’s birthplace in the southern city of Kandahar just days after his fighters swept to power across the country.

The United States and other countries have resumed military evacuation efforts for Afghan allies and other civilians. The Air Force said Tuesday that it is launching an investigation into the deaths of Afghan civilians related to a U.S. C-17 flight that departed Kabul, including reports of people falling from the airborne plane and human remains found later in a wheel well.

Here are some significant developments

The United States evacuated some 1,100 U.S. citizens, permanent residents and their families on Tuesday. Biden administration officials told Senate staffers that about 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizens remain in Afghanistan, according to two Senate aides.

The Taliban has sought to signal it has become more tolerant of women’s rights. Some Afghan women and their allies fear otherwise.

A group of Washington Post employees and their families safely departed Kabul for Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday.

Sensitive government data could be another casualty of Afghan pulloutLink copied

Among the many long-term costs of the rapid fall of the Afghan government and the swift withdrawal of U.S. diplomatic and military personnel, count this one: Troves of sensitive U.S. government data are surely being left behind in the nation now under Taliban control.

The vast majority of classified information that lived on U.S. embassy computers was almost certainly flown out of Afghanistan or destroyed. A lot of the government’s highly sensitive data is also housed in computer clouds rather than on hard drives and protected with multiple security controls.

But reams of unclassified but sensitive material will probably remain in the country, both in digital forms and on paper.

In many cases, that’s because it was shared with the Afghan government, non-governmental organizations and other partners in the country. At least some information was also probably overlooked on old laptops, phones and removable media during the faster-than expected exit.

She was the only member of Congress to vote against war in Afghanistan. Some called her a traitor.Link copied

Rep. Barbara Lee agonized over her vote, she said later, until that morning, when the California Democrat listened to the prayer of one of the country’s most prominent clergymen.

“Let us also pray for divine wisdom as our leaders consider the necessary actions for national security, wisdom of the grace of God, that as we act we not become the evil we deplore,” the dean of Washington National Cathedral, Rev. Nathan Baxter, said in his opening invocation, three days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

When she quoted him on the House floor later that day to explain her vote against giving the president a broad, open-ended authorization for military force, she was called a terrorist, a traitor and close to treasonous. The House vote was 420 to 1. The Senate vote was 98 to 0.

Twenty years, countless lives and more than a trillion dollars later, many are looking anew at Lee’s lone vote.

Key updateThe Taliban insists it has changed. Afghanistan’s future hinges on whether that’s true.Link copied

KABUL â€" For years, the man who spoke for the Taliban hid his face from the world.

As the voice of insurgents seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahid was an outlaw and a target. In media appearances, his face was covered or blurred.

But that changed in dramatic fashion Tuesday when Mujahid spoke openly and extensively at a news conference in Kabul. His group, he said, had changed, too. Whether that pledge bears any relation to how the Taliban will ultimately govern remains the biggest unknown as Afghanistan confronts its next chapter.

As Taliban fighters rode through a Kabul neighborhood, a crowd dominated by men ultimately offered cheers and handshakes â€" though it was unclear whether out of admiration or fear.

Taliban says it will be more tolerant toward women. Some fear otherwise.Link copied

In some parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul, a generation of girls grew up in a world completely different from the one their parents knew.

The Taliban’s return to the city and consolidation of power this week appeared to bring those nearly two decades of change, including hard-won rights for women, crashing down.

“Now every Afghan woman [is] in prison in their room. They cannot go outside. They cannot be like before,” Friba, who fled from Kunduz, a northern provincial capital, to Kabul this month, told The Washington Post.

The Taliban, wary of once again governing as an international pariah, has tried to show it has grown more tolerant of women’s rights â€" pledging at a news conference Tuesday that “there will be no discrimination against women."

Some women and their international allies fear otherwise.

Britain will resettle 5,000 Afghans this year, government announcesLink copied

Britain will resettle up to 5,000 Afghans this year, the government said Tuesday â€" and up to 20,000 Afghans will ultimately be allowed into the country in the coming years, the BBC reported.

These come in addition to roughly 5,000 interpreters and others who worked for Britain in Afghanistan and their families, who are eligible to be relocated to Britain through a different route. Nearly 2,000 have arrived since late June, according to the BBC.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who have worked with us to make Afghanistan a better place over the last 20 years,” Johnson said, according to the BBC. “Many of them, particularly women, are now in urgent need of our help. I am proud that the U.K. has been able to put in place this route to help them and their families live safely in the U.K.”

The British government has faced criticism for its detention and forced removals of Afghans in recent years, and advocacy groups have called on the government to resettle broad categories of Afghans as well as those who were forcibly removed from Britain.

“This is pathetic. 5000 this year doesn’t even equal the number of Afghan people we’ve forcibly removed in the past decade,” Bella Sankey, director of rights organization Detention Action, wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds from the opposition Labour Party criticized “the government’s incompetence in failing to plan” for evacuations in the event of a swift Taliban takeover. “After such catastrophic errors, the government must step up with a more urgent plan of action,” he said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with President Biden on Tuesday evening about the situation in Afghanistan, and they committed to continued cooperation to evacuate their nationals and Afghans, Downing Street said in a statement.

Johnson also described Britain’s plans to increase humanitarian aid to the region. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC on Tuesday that Britain could increase its humanitarian aid by 10 percent.

Johnson and Biden will hold further discussions on Afghanistan at a virtual meeting of Group of Seven leaders in the coming days, Downing Street said.

Johnson is scheduled to address British lawmakers Wednesday morning about the situation in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post evacuates Afghan employees and family members from Taliban-held KabulLink copied

A group of Washington Post employees, including Afghan journalists and their families, safely departed Kabul on Tuesday, ending some anxious hours in the wake of the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan.

The employees, along with their families, began gathering at Kabul’s airport beginning Sunday amid growing uncertainty as Taliban fighters swept unopposed into the capital. In all some 13 people, including an American correspondent, were able to board a U.S. military transport for a flight to safe haven in Doha, Qatar.

The Post group was part of a contingent of 204 people who have worked in Afghanistan for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Post and have been seeking to flee the country since Sunday. The fate of most of this group was unknown as of Tuesday afternoon, Eastern time.

72 hours at Camp David: Inside Biden’s lagging response to the fall of AfghanistanLink copied

Marine One lifted off Friday at 1:36 p.m. for Camp David bearing a leader headed on a long-planned August vacation: President Biden, clad in a black baseball cap and a light-blue short-sleeved shirt, carried a lone piece of luggage and was accompanied by his wife and a small retinue of staff.

But when the president’s official helicopter touched back down 72 hours later in Washington, the leader who emerged was preparing to address the biggest foreign policy crisis of his presidency â€" a rapidly devolving catastrophe in Afghanistan that has left the administration scrambling to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals before the Taliban’s stunningly swift takeover of the nation is complete.

One close Biden foreign policy ally, who is in regular contact with the White House and the State Department, said the president’s team would never have let him leave for Camp David had they known just how quickly Afghanistan would implode amid the president’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops by Sept. 11.

Some governments, U.N. cautiously optimistic about Taliban pledges, ask for follow-throughLink copied

Some foreign governments and organizations reacted with tentative optimism Tuesday to the Taliban’s pledges during its first news conference that the group would pursue more inclusive governance and not discriminate against women.

The Taliban also announced a general amnesty for government officials.

“In this turbulent situation, today’s statements by the Taliban spokesman were encouraging. We welcome his emphasis on amnesty and tolerance over revenge, as well as his promise to honor the rights of women to education and work,” Anwar Gargash, a senior official in the United Arab Emirates, wrote on Twitter.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said early Tuesday that Ankara was “continuing our dialogue with all sides, including the Taliban.”

Speaking at a news conference in Amman, Jordan, Cavusoglu said Turkey had “welcomed all the messages given by the Taliban so far, whether it be to foreigners or to diplomatic missions or to their own people.”

“I hope we will see this in their actions,” he added.

But many remain skeptical. The Taliban’s history raises some doubts about the group’s intent to honor the pledges it has given in recent days, said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

“Nevertheless, the promises have been made, and whether or not they are honored or broken will be closely scrutinized,” he said.

Lawmakers request more information from Biden on plan to evacuate Americans and others from Afghanistan Link copied

More than 40 House members â€" Democrats and Republicans â€" have asked the Biden administration to provide more details about how congressional offices can work with federal agencies to help evacuate individuals still in Afghanistan as the country is increasingly being taken over by Taliban forces.

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) wrote to Biden requesting that the administration â€" and especially the State and Defense departments â€" do as much as possible to ensure that Americans and those affiliated with the United States can safely leave the war-torn country immediately.

“We are gravely concerned for the many people â€" U.S. citizens, Afghan allies and their families, women, NGO employees, journalists, and so many others â€" stuck in Afghanistan fearing for their lives and the future of the country,” she wrote Tuesday. “It is this administration’s moral obligation to leverage all available resources to help as many people as possible to safety in the United States. There is no time to waste.”

Biden said in a speech Monday from the White House that his administration was working to help Americans return to the United States and warned the Taliban that any attempts to block that process would be met with swift action.

But a day later, Jacobs and others expressed deep concern for those whose lives are at risk because of their association with the United States. And lawmakers also asked for information on the administration’s plan to evacuate those who do not have prioritized status and an explanation of how U.S. agencies are contacting those in need of assistance.

The California Democrat said congressional offices are working hard to evacuate those eligible for certain programs but need more communication from the White House on how to expedite individuals’ transition.

“Congress will continue to assist the Department of State, Department of Defense and other relevant agencies in their efforts to support Americans and Afghans abroad,” she wrote. “We urge the Administration’s foresight and close coordination with our staff in the process, as well as a swift response to these questions so we can be helpful and responsive to the needs of those in harm’s way.”

UNICEF ‘cautiously optimistic’ about girls’ education, immunization under TalibanLink copied

U.N. officials said they are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to work under the Taliban on such issues as education for girls and childhood immunization.

UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the U.N. children’s agency had reached an agreement with Taliban leaders in December to allow access to some communities. That gave it hope that further cooperation was possible under a national Taliban government.

“We are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to carry on our work and hopefully expand it,” Ben Messaoud said.

UNICEF is in contact with the Taliban about continuing its work in Afghanistan, he said.

Ben Messaoud said that in the western city of Herat, the third-largest in Afghanistan, “primary and secondary schools are open again with girls and boys attending.” Herat fell to Taliban forces Thursday.

In a separate U.N. briefing, Ben Messaoud said that 11 out of 13 UNICEF posts in the country were operating and had not encountered problems with Taliban officials.

The tentatively positive appraisal from U.N. representatives in Afghanistan came as a Taliban spokesman in Kabul offered conciliatory messages about women’s rights and pledged an “inclusive” government.

Many observers have their doubts. The Taliban, which adheres to a strict interpretation of sharia law, has blocked girls from attending school in the past, sometimes with violence.

U.N. officials have emphasized that their hope was “cautious.” Ben Messaoud said that in some ways, Afghanistan’s takeover by the Taliban could make negotiations for access to hard-to-reach populations easier.

“We hope now that there is only one leadership in Afghanistan we will able to reach all those who have not been reached in years,” he said.

Trudeau says Canada has ‘no plans’ to recognize Taliban as Afghan governmentLink copied

TORONTO â€" Canada has “no plans” to recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, one day after Canada’s foreign minister said the country was waiting to see how the situation in Afghanistan unfolded.

“When they were in government 20 years ago, Canada did not recognize them as a government,” Trudeau said during an election campaign stop in Markham, Ontario. “They have taken over and replaced a duly elected democratic government by force.”

His comments came after Marc Garneau, Canada’s foreign minister, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday that Ottawa was going to “wait and see” how the Taliban would behave after taking over Afghanistan.

“Certainly, their behavior was totally unacceptable for the short time that they were in charge after the Russians left about 20 years ago,” Garneau said.

Trudeau said that nine Canadian flights had departed Afghanistan in recent weeks and that Canada has evacuated its diplomatic officials. He also said that he had spoken to former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton about “our concerns for Afghan women and girls.”

His government continues to face charges that it has dithered in evacuating thousands of Afghan locals who assisted Canada’s war effort. Trudeau said this week that officials have been working on evacuation efforts since the spring, but it was not until this month that evacuation flights began arriving in Canada.

Advocacy groups have said that many Afghan locals who were told to go to Kabul arrived to find the Canadian Embassy temporarily shut down. Others are stranded and struggling to navigate bureaucratic obstacles.

“Much depends on the security situation on the ground,” Trudeau said. “And we are doing absolutely everything we can to bring people to safety and to ensure that our allies do the same.”

Administration estimates that up to 15,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, Senate aides say Link copied

National security officials in the Biden administration told a bipartisan group of Senate staffers on Tuesday that about 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizens remain in Afghanistan, according to two Senate aides. It is the most concrete figure given to date about how many Americans are still in the country as efforts continue to evacuate U.S. citizens and some groups of Afghans.

During a time of crisis in a foreign country, U.S. citizens are instructed to notify the local U.S. Embassy of their presence so diplomats can work to assist them. That creates a database for the United States to estimate the number of Americans in need of help. In media briefings, the State Department has declined to divulge its estimates of Americans in Afghanistan.

According to the aides, the administration officials â€" from the State and Defense departments, as well as the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff â€" also told the assembled Senate staffers that there is no plan to evacuate Americans who are outside Kabul, as they do not have a way of getting through the Taliban checkpoints outside the Afghan capital.

Officials did not specify how many Americans are outside Kabul, the aides said. The briefing, which was held Tuesday morning and attended by aides representing a wide swath of Senate offices, lasted half an hour.

A few hours later, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the Taliban has “informed us that they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment.” He did not elaborate but said the process could go on until Aug. 31.

“We are talking to them about what the exact timetable is,” he said.

The Democratic chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees both pledged on Tuesday to hold public hearings to grill Biden administration officials about the Afghanistan pullout. Neither committee has announced a date for its intended hearing.

John Hudson contributed to this report.

Air Force launches investigation of Afghan deaths following Kabul airport chaosLink copied

The Air Force said on Tuesday that it is launching an investigation into the deaths of civilians related to a C-17 flight that departed Kabul, including reports of people falling from the airborne plane and human remains that were later found in a wheel well.

The probe will be carried out by the service’s Office of Special Investigations and is expected to include both interviews and an examination of viral videos of the departing flight.

“OSI’s review will be thorough to ensure we obtain the facts regarding this tragic incident,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased.”

The Washington Post first reported on Monday night that remains had been found in a wheel well.

The Air Force said on Tuesday that the plane briefly landed on the one runway at Kabul airport on Monday to deliver equipment and support evacuations. Before the aircrew could offload their cargo, “the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians who had breached the airport perimeter,” the Air Force said.

Faced with a deteriorating security situation, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airport as quickly as possible, apparently without evacuating anyone. The human remains were found after the plane landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The plane has been impounded to collect the remains and inspect the aircraft, the Air Force said.

“The U.S. Air Force remains laser-focused on maintaining security at [Kabul airport] to prevent a situation like this from happening again as we safely process Afghan civilians seeking to depart the country,” the statement said.

Top E.U. diplomat: ‘The Taliban have won the war, so we will have to talk with them’Link copied

BRUSSELS â€" The European Union’s top diplomat acknowledged a new political reality in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

“The Taliban have won the war, so we will have to talk with them,” Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs, said at a news briefing.

Borrell said the bloc intends to open a channel of communication with Taliban leaders to coordinate evacuations, humanitarian concerns and the conditions under which the E.U. will continue supplying the country with development aid.

But he stopped short of promising the new leaders any sort of official recognition.

“It’s not a matter of official recognition,” he said. “It’s a matter of dealing with.”

The bloc’s top priority is coordinating the departure of all E.U. citizens still in the country and the 400-some Afghans who have worked with the Europeans. Without talking to the Taliban, Borrell said, it would be impossible to ensure that those people made it to the Kabul airport safely.

Borrell’s statement amounted to a reluctant acceptance of a new and uncertain diplomatic dynamic in Afghanistan. But he also said that the E.U. would use “all our leverage” to ensure the nascent government respects human rights.

“I haven’t said that we are going to recognize the Taliban, I just said that we have to talk with them for everything, even to try to protect women and girls â€" even for that, we have to get in touch with them,” Borrell said. “I haven’t said that we’re going to accept the Taliban for whatever they do.”

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