Reality Check

According to the US government’s Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (Sigar), 80% of Afghanistan's budget has come from foreign aid sources.

Since the Taliban took control of the country:

• The World Bank has paused all reconstruction and development projects
• The IMF has withheld access to $440m due to have been released this month
• Afghan central bank assets held in the US have been frozen (around $7bn).

Some individual countries have also suspended their aid programmes.

• Germany has halted its $300m programme for this year
• Finland and Sweden have also done so.

The EU is halting development assistance payments (ODA) but says it may increase humanitarian aid. It had committed $1.4bn in ODA funding to Afghanistan from 2021 to 2024.

On 19 Aug, the UK announced a substantial increase of UK funding to £286m in aid for 2020-2021. The government has not clarified how this support will be affected by the Taliban takeover.

At an international donor conference held in November last year, a total of $12bn was pledged over the next four years. It’s not clear how these pledges will be affected by the current crisis.

Image source, Pentagon

More from the Pentagon briefing now. Press secretary John Kirby was asked about reports that the Taliban were blocking Afghans from getting to Kabul airport for evacuation flights.

He says more than 30 consular officers are stationed at the airport gates with US troops helping them to process people by checking credentials and making sure people are in a valid group that the US is trying to move on to the airport ground.

He says: "Outside of that the Taliban have set up checkpoints and we are in daily communication with Taliban commanders about who we want to get in and what the credentials are, what they look like and what's valid.

"That communication happens everyday. We have been nothing but open with the Taliban about who we expect them to let in."

He admits "not every step of this process is in our firm control".

Image source, Getty Images

A group of Afghan journalists who worked for the New York Times have arrived safely in Mexico with their families after the country came to their aid, the newspaper is reporting., external

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard received a plea for help from Azam Ahmed, a former chief of the Times’s Kabul and Mexico bureaus, the article says.

The Times says that while the US has ramped up its evacuation flights, the American immigration system has struggled to meet the crisis.

Ebrard told The Times: “We didn’t have time in order to have the normal official channels.”

Mexican officials provided documents that allowed the Afghans to fly from Kabul to Doha, Qatar and on to Mexico, the report says.

The article says Ebard cited a national tradition of welcoming everyone from the 19th-century Cuban independence leader José Martí to German Jews and South Americans fleeing coups. He said Mexico had opened its doors to the Afghan journalists “in order to protect them and to be consistent with this policy".

Mexico has extended its invitation to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post for its Afghan journalists, according to The Times.

During the Pentagon briefing just now, press secretary John Kirby confirmed he had seen press reports that someone affiliated with Islamic State had taken one of the evacuation flights.

He said he had no more information but that screening was being done by the department of homeland security, immigration and intelligence officials as evacuees took onward flights.

US Army Maj Gen Hank Taylor also confirmed there had been a helicopter mission "last night during the period of darkness" that had brought up to 20 evacuees from outside Kabul airport into the complex, where they awaited a flight.

Laura Trevelyan
BBC World News America presenter

The war in Afghanistan was launched in 2001 by President George W Bush, a former governor of Texas, and so the scenes unfolding in Kabul now are being followed especially avidly in political circles here in Austin.

In many ways, the Afghanistan conflict is closely linked to Texas. It is a state with 15 military bases that has sent many troops there, and is also now home to a vibrant Afghan-American community that once worked as translators for the US military.

Thomas McGregor, Chairman of the South Austin Republican Club, tells the BBC the US has a huge obligation to the families of former translators. “It’s a very dangerous situation. We need those families to know they have asylum here if they want and they will be protected.”

Asked if this is President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Mr McGregor says: “Let’s not conflate things. We’re all in support of the goal. It’s the execution that the Biden admin has failed on. They’ve failed in communication with people on the ground. They’ve been basically hands-off in this situation.”

Image source, EPA

At that Pentagon briefing Press Secretary John Kirby has been asked what the end game for the US evacuation from Afghanistan will look like.

He says: "We will continue to evacuate needed populations all the way to the end if we have to and we need to.

"But in the last couple of days we will begin to prioritise military capability and military resources to move out.

"That doesn't mean if you're an evacuee and you need to get out we are not going to try to get you out."

The US deadline for leaving is 31 August - Tuesday.

More now from that Pentagon briefing:

US Army Maj Gen Hank Taylor says five flights arrived in Washington DC carrying Afghan refugees, and 1,200 people underwent biomentric vetting and screening.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby says: "We are doing the best we can as fast as we can to move as many people out as we can on any given day.

"We will continue to evacuate all the way to the end."

He says when the US evacuation mission is over troops will leave the airport and it will no longer be the reponsibility of the US.

He says: "The Taliban will have to manage on their own and I assume with the international community."

Image source, Getty Images

US defence and military officials are holding a news conference at the Pentagon.

US Army Maj Gen Hank Taylor, joint staff deputy director for regional operations security, says the focus of the evacuation operation remains to "get as many people out as efficiently and safely as possible".

He says 42 US military aircraft - 37 C17 and five C130 planes - took 11,200 US personnel and 7,800 personnel from 48 allied partners out of Afghanistan yesterday.

He says a plane departed Kabul airport every 39 minutes.

He says there are more than 10,000 people currently at the airport awaiting departure.

"This is a snapshot in time," he says as more people could arrive at the airport in a bid to leave the country.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

The chief advisor to Turkey’s President Erdogan has warned that European countries can’t rely on Turkey to deal with a surge of Afghan refugees.

“It’s not going to be like Syria, it’s not going to be a free-for-all," Ilnur Cevik told Radio 4's The World at One. "With Syria we opened our gates to all of them and the international community has hardly helped Turkey in that sense."

"The international community has to respond as well, it’s not only Turkey’s problem," he continued. "The European Union and the Western countries cannot just simply say 'let Turkey be a buffer'”.

Asked whether Turkey could act as a staging post for refugees on the way to other countries in Europe, Mr Çevik was very clear: “No I don’t think so... We’re not even their next-door neighbours, why should we be a staging post?”.

Thousands of people are continuing to try to flee Afghanistan following a Taliban takeover of the country.

The BBC's Visual Journalism Team has been keeping track of the numbers managing to escape and where they are heading to.

Laura Trevelyan
BBC News presenter in Austin, Texas

US Air Force veteran Molly Mae Potter says watching the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is like a gut punch.

She served there as a captain, and is shocked by the scenes of Afghans desperately trying to leave.

“I’m hurt, it’s re-traumatising. I have an absolutely sinking feeling of betrayal. These were our brothers and sisters in arms, “ says Molly, who now lives in Austin, Texas.

She worked with women and children in Afghanistan, trying to build trust between the US military and the Afghan community - so to see the Taliban confine women to their homes is especially upsetting for Molly.

“I’m scared for these women and children as the US programmes fall apart,” she told me.

Like other US veterans of the war in Afghanistan, Molly is now questioning the value of her own service and sacrifice.

“I came home with visible and invisible wounds. I lost my war with mental health at some points. And now I am waking up every day, thinking about Afghanistan.”

Image source, Getty Images

The Taliban say they've banned Afghans from transferring American dollars and local artefacts abroad.

Speaking with the Afghan Islamic Press, a Taliban spokesperson said anyone caught with these items would have them confiscated, and they'd face legal action.

It comes as the Taliban face mounting pressure on their finances from abroad.

The Afghan central bank has reserves of roughly $9bn (£6.5bn), most of which is held in America. But the US has barred the Taliban from withdrawing any of its assets in America.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have also suspended their aid and loans to Afghanistan.

Image source, Alice Bromage

Alice Bromage was at home on Saturday night when she got the message. She had just arrived back from a work trip when it flashed up on WhatsApp: I'm stuck here, please help me get out.

The message was from an Afghan man who Alice knew from her days as a major in the British army having served two tours of Afghanistan. She trained and looked after him when he visited the UK.

"If they had a weekend off, we would go shopping for presents for his children," says Alice, 44. "He would show me videos of his daughters, and what they liked, so that I could help him buy for them gifts to take home. They were very proud of their families."

She replied to him and asked for more details. "We're in a very hard time," he said. He has the paperwork needed to get out, but no money. "I have in bank and banks are locked now. Even I was trying to find milk for my baby and couldn't."

Alice says she's not alone in receiving pleas for help. In fact, most of the veterans she knows have.

"I haven't heard of a single person so far who hasn't been contacted by someone. I'm not special," she says. "People there are desperate and are trying to contact all those who served alongside them. They trust us, that's why."

Read more here on how Alice and fellow members of a group of female veterans nicknamed the Sandhurst Sisterhood have been inundated with messages.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

Image source, Mikhail Svetlov/ Getty Images

China’s President Xi Jinping has talked on the phone to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two leaders reportedly “had an in-depth exchange of views on the situation in Afghanistan”.

According to state media, Mr Xi “emphasised that China respects Afghanistan’s "sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” and said that China is “pursuing a policy of non-interference in Afghan internal affairs”.

However, he noted that “the two sides agreed that the current international and regional situation is complex and evolving,” and added that both countries will “maintain communication”.

The state-backed Global Times newspaper had earlier indicated that China's attitude towards the Taliban could change if events in Afghanistan have a “negative impact on Xinjiang”, the Chinese region that borders the country.

China’s embassy in Afghanistan remains open, but has called on Chinese based there to make themselves known in the event that the situation changes. Today the foreign ministry has emphasised that “China maintains smooth communication with the Taliban”.

What was notably absent from media coverage of the conversation between Mr Xi and Mr Putin was any mention of the West’s role in Afghanistan. However, Mr Xi stressed the importance of political dialogue from all parties.

In recent days, media in China have emphasised that the US cannot simply walk away from Afghanistan.

Outlets have highlighted the recent comments of foreign ministry personnel, who have criticised the “hasty” US retreat from Afghanistan, saying that they have said this has left “turbulence and chaos".

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Image source, Getty Images

Alistair Burt, the UK's Former Minister of State for the Middle East, has told the BBC that Britain has "limited leverage" over what happens in Afghanistan now.

"The Taliban are going to rule Afghanistan in the way in which they have already set out, according to their interpretation of Sharia law," he told Radio 4's The World at One. "If other governments don't like it, I don't suspect there is very much they can do about it."

"I think it's always difficult for politicians and governments to say there is nothing we can do. Nobody wants to hear that," added Mr Burt.

"But sometimes it's very honest and realistic to say we are very limited in what we can do."

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

The RAF has evacuated 10,291 people out of Kabul to date.

That includes 341 embassy staff, 2,570 UK nationals and 6,308 under the government’s Afghan relocation programme (ARAP).

Defence sources say that was well beyond the original estimates when the operation began.

The BBC has been told that 2,000 people eligible for the ARAP scheme remain in Afghanistan - but the plan is to evacuate more in the coming days.

Defence sources say there’s been an “uptick” in people being beaten on their way to the airport. The defence secretary has already gone on record to say that not everyone will get out in the airlift.

'Real risk of an attack'

The BBC has also been told that the terrorist threat remains high with “a very real risk of an attack" on the airport. There is specific concern about the threat posed by ISKP.

Next the 1,000 UK military personnel at the airport will have to be evacuated. There is still the scope of conducting the military drawdown while continuing evacuation flights over the coming days.

The MoD is not giving any timetables for the drawdown.

But given that the US is providing the bulk of security at Kabul airport their forces are expected to leave last.

A young woman named Sulgai from Kabul has been declared Afghanistan's top student as the results of the national university entrance exams were announced today.

The Kankor exams were taken as the Taliban tightened its hold of Afghanistan. Now, following the take over, there are fears that women and girls will not be able to continue their education.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai - who was shot aged 15 by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan - said: "We have already seen news reports that many girls have been sent back from university. A lot of them have been asked to get married at age 15, 12."

Read more: Uncertain times ahead for Afghan women and girls

Image source, European Pressphoto Agency

Russia has granted around 1,000 people permission to enter the country from Afghanistan after its rapid takeover by the Taliban, the state-owned news company RIA has reported.

The number included those with Russian passports, people with permanent residence rights and students of Russian universities.

Meanwhile the Russian Defence Ministry has announced that it has begun evacuating more than 500 people from Afghanistan, including citizens of Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of his ruling United Russia party that the situation in Afghanistan was "difficult and alarming" and that his government was keeping "a close eye on the situation".

Image source, EPA

The Polish government says it has stopped flights from Kabul, after completing a mission to bring out all Poles and Afghans who helped its embassy and military.

"We can no longer risk the lives of our diplomats, our military,” says Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz. Two planes are currently on their way back to Poland and some 800 Afghans are thought to have been evacuated overall.

France has said it's very likely that its evacuations will end tomorrow and Hungary expects its operation to bring out Afghans is nearly over too. "The exact timing will be announced by the commander of the army, which may happen as soon as today," says Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

Spanish military flights are continuing meanwhile and the government in Madrid says it is going to carry on for the moment, having expanded its list to Afghan women and girls in positions that are considered vulnerable. This Spanish defence ministry post shows Afghans being airlifted from Kabul to Dubai.

Two evacuation flights arrived in Belgium this morning carrying 470 people and Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder has said the future of the evacuation mission depends on continuing security on the ground. Details are also emerging of a secret Belgian operation last night to evacuate up to 250 people, who were told to gather at a special place before being taken to the airport in five buses.

An Afghan journalist gave an emotional interview as she fled Afghanistan, fearing the Taliban would kill her for her work.

"I love my country, but I cannot stay here," Wahida Faizi told the BBC's Lyse Doucet in Kabul.

She vowed never to return to Afghanistan. "After this, it's not my country."

On Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman said that working women must stay at home until proper systems are in place to ensure their safety.

Read more here: Afghan working women to stay at home for now