Muhammad Edrees fled from Afghanistan after his father, a government official, was murdered by the Taliban in 2011.

Now living in Northern Ireland, he said he fears for his mother and three sisters who have fled from their home and are now staying in a tent on the streets of the capital, Kabul.

"I absolutely have no idea or no guarantee about the next couple of minutes or the next hour what's going to happen to my family," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

Taking a conciliatory tone after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said talks were underway to form a new government.

So how have other world leaders responded?

• The United States is in active communication with the Taliban, seeking assurances of safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies out of the country. But American officials have said the US would not recognise a Taliban-led government that gains power through force. President Biden has not spoken to any other world leaders since the collapse of Kabul, officials said on Tuesday
• The EU will have to engage with the Taliban to provide support to the Afghan people even if it does not recognise the milita as legitimate rulers, the bloc's foreign policy chief said. "I haven't said that we are going to recognise the Taliban," Josep Borrell said on Tuesday
• The UK plans to increase humanitarian aid to the country by 10%, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, but he did not say whether it would recognise the Taliban-led government
• Nato has suspended all aid to the country now that it is under Taliban control. The support could resume if some kind of "inclusive government" is established, Nato Chief Jens Stoltenberg said
• Canada has no plans to recognise the Taliban as legitimate rulers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, noting the group is considered a terrorist organisation
• Pakistan’s information minister said on Tuesday that his country will make a decision about the recognition of a Taliban government in Afghanistan only after consultations with regional and international powers

After evacuating just seven people from Kabul on its first military aircraft out of Afghanistan yesterday, Germany says a flight took off today with 125 people on board.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a tweet that people were being transported to safety.

They include citizens of Germany and 14 other countries.

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said she hoped the country would continue to have access to Kabul airport for several days to create an "air bridge" for evacuations.

She said the aim was to transport people from Afghanistan to Tashkent in neighbouring Uzbekistan and to get as many people as possible to safety.

"We have a very chaotic, dangerous and complex situation at the airport," she told broadcaster ARD, adding: "We had very little time, so we only took on board people who were on site... not many were able to be at the airport."

Aisha Iqbal
Political Reporter

An Afghan family living in Leeds have been telling the BBC what life is like for their relatives still living in the country.

Nahida, Mohammed and Mustafa Feroz (pictured below), fled Afghanistan when Mustafa, who is now 22, was a baby.

Nahida told BBC Radio Leeds: “This is horrible. My dad, my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, all my family are in Kabul.

"I spoke to my sister and asked, 'do you have food, do you have water and electricity?' She said ‘we can’t go out, the Taliban came and the shops are closed’."

Mustafa, who is now a student at the University of Leeds, said: "I think the governments have abandoned the country. Not just the home government, but also Western governments.”

Listen to the full interview:

A former soldier who lost both his legs in Afghanistan says he and his colleagues have to believe it was all worth it.

Clive Smith, of Cannock, Staffordshire, spoke of his feelings as the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

He said it was heartbreaking to see years of work ripped out but service personnel had acted with integrity.

His work helped to remove bombs which saved countless lives, he said.

"To put that kind of infrastructure in place and that ground work in place and to see it ripped out from under them it's heartbreaking to see," he said.

Read more here.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is up at the podium now, taking further questions on the US withdrawal.

Psaki is asked whether the administration was surprised by how quickly the Taliban took control - a question that has been posed repeatedly to US officials in recent days.

"This did happen more rapidly than we anticipated here, than anyone anticipated," she says, adding that President Joe Biden has complete confidence in his intelligence teams.

Psaki then reiterates the defence made by Biden last night, turning the focus on the Afghan national army, saying the president "won't ask mothers and fathers to send their children to fight a war the Afghans won't fight for themselves".

The Taliban go on a charm offensivepublished at 19:33 British Summer Time 17 August 2021

19:33 BST 17 August 2021

Mina al-Lami
Jihadist Media Specialist, BBC Monitoring

Image source, Reuters

The Taliban are running a sophisticated PR campaign on multiple platforms and in multiple languages, trying to win the hearts and minds of Afghans and the international community.

The group has been putting out a flurry of messages of assurance to locals, banks, businesses, civilian foreign workers, investors, neighbours and regional players. It has offered amnesty to former government employees and Afghans who worked with foreign forces, and it has repeatedly stressed it wants to “provide a safe and stable environment” for everyone.

Aware of concerns about the rights of women and girls, the Taliban tweeted an image on 16 August showing girls “on their way to school”, saying education for girls continues. That day they also posted a clip claiming to show a Taliban official assuring a group of female doctors and nurses that they're OK to continue work. The women were shown wearing the normal veil rather than the all-covering burka.

The Taliban have also been trying to dispel “rumours” about violations by the group, and denied reports that they were forcing families to marry off their daughters to Taliban militants.

Images, videos and posts by Taliban and supporters seek to convey a sense of normality, even improvement, under its rule. It claims people are happy about the Taliban’s arrival. In a statement on 13 August, the Taliban said their swift capture of areas is “a testament to [their] huge popularity”.

The Taliban are keen to prove that Afghanistan can flourish under their rule, or can at least be a safe and stable country, because this will be a major coup for Islamist rule.

But their success is likely to hinge on their ability to be flexible and pragmatic - something they has been showing on the public messaging front. But the attempt to make political gains could easily delegitimise the Taliban in the eyes of the wider jihadist movement.

We've been talking to former US military personnel about the sacrifices their country has made in Afghanistan.

More than 800,000 US military members served in Afghanistan during America's longest war. Over 2,000 were killed and more than 20,000 were injured.

Four veterans who served in Afghanistan reflect on the war and the fall of the country they tried to help rebuild.

You can read our full report here.

Back in the White House briefing room, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is continuing his defence of the American withdrawal.

He is asked about the 31 August deadline - the official end of the US mission - and whether the US will "abandon" Afghan allies who are not safely removed by then.

Sullivan dodges the question, saying only that the US plan is to "evacuate the people who worked with the United States who are eligible for Special Immigrant Visas" - the visa designed for interpreters and other Afghans who worked with US troops.

"It is a generous programme," Sullivan says.

Appearing increasingly frustrated, Sullivan later bristles at a question about how the US can be a global leader without sacrifice.

"The idea that there was a lack of sacrifice is belied by rows of headstones at Arlington Cemetery," he says. The sacrifices were "immense".

Reality Check

At the Taliban press conference today, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that when they ruled the country prior to 2001, the cultivation of poppies for opium was zero.

“When we were in power before there was no production of drugs (opium)”.

But according to the US state department, opium poppy cultivation rose substantially under Taliban rule, from around 41,000 hectares in 1998 to more than 64,000 in 2000., external

This increase largely occurred in Taliban-controlled Helmand province, which alone accounted for 39% of the world's illicit opium production.

The Taliban profited through taxes on the opium crop and indirectly through processing and trafficking, the US report said.

However, in July 2000, the Taliban banned opium poppy farming in areas they controlled.

A UN report in May 2001 “observed the near total success of the ban in eliminating poppy cultivation in Taliban controlled areas.”, external

But this was short-lived and in recent years, most poppy growing has been in areas controlled by the Taliban.

Today, Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, which can be refined into heroin.

Lailuma Sadid, a journalist with Brussels Morning Newspaper, became emotional when asking Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"As an Afghan woman... the situation is really tough, there are thousands of women who don't know, for the future, what is going on," she said.

"Please don't recognise [the Taliban] without any condition, like the agreement which is signed between Taliban and the government of Trump."

Image source, Getty Images

Back to the White House news conference now, where National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is asked how other US allies should react to the withdrawal - amid reports that Afghan allies are being left behind.

"We gave 20 years of American blood, treasure, sweat and tears" in Afghanistan, Sullivan says.

Noting the panicked scenes in Kabul over the past few days, Sullivan suggests it was expected, saying "when a civil war comes to an end... there are going to be scenes of chaos".

"That is not something that can be fundamentally avoided," he says.

Image source, Reuters

Canada "has no plans" to recognise a Taliban government in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says.

"They have taken over and replaced a duly elected democratic government by force," he told reporters.

The prime minister said the group remained a "recognised terrorist organisation" under Canadian law.

Canada did not recognise the Taliban when they were in control of Afghanistan 20 years ago, Trudeau said, adding that the focus was on getting people out of the country.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is joined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan now to brief reporters.

Sullivan doubles down on the defence of the US withdrawal made by President Joe Biden yesterday.

Noting the "heartbreaking" human costs of the exit, Sullivan says President Biden had to consider the "human costs of the alternative path" - staying in Afghanistan.

Stopping the Taliban "would have taken a significant American troop presence - multiple times greater than President Biden was handed", Sullivan says.

The national security adviser also says that the US is in contact with the Taliban to "ensure the safe passage of people to the airport".

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

Image source, EPA

Some calm has been restored to Kabul airport after the chaos of yesterday – when desperate Afghans crowded the runway preventing planes from taking off.

Along with the arrival of hundreds more troops, more military flights have been landing and departing. The US says it soon aims to fly out more than 5,000 people a day – and the UK up to 1,000.

The British evacuation is being overseen by Vice Admiral Sir Ben Key, who estimates at least 6,000 UK nationals and Afghans who worked for the British are now waiting to leave.

Though he says many will still have to make their own way to the airport past Taliban checkpoints.

"They are now controlling all of the access points around the airport so at a tactical level around the gates we are having to have a practical engagement with the Taliban commanders," he said.

"We're only a day and a half into this new situation, they have seemed acquiescent and understanding of what we're trying to achieve," he added.

There are reports that some Afghans are still finding it hard to get past Taliban checkpoints.

Others are in hiding waiting to find out if they'll be given visas to fly out. And it's still not clear how long this escape route will remain open. That largely depends on the Taliban, who've set a deadline of 11 September for all foreign troops to leave.

The window of opportunity is closing fast.

Earlier we reported that Amrullah Saleh, the First Vice-President of Afghanistan under Ashraf Ghani, is claiming to be the caretaker president following Mr Ghani's flight.

Mr Saleh has released an audio message to the BBC.

He confirms he is still in Afghanistan, and says that the war is not over:

Image source, Reuters

The EU has to talk to the Taliban because they "have won the war" in Afghanistan, the bloc's foreign policy chief says.

Josep Borrell told a news conference that the EU wanted to extract nearly 400 Afghans and their families who had worked with the union, and without talking to the Taliban it would be difficult to get them to the airport.

Borrell said Spain would act as hub to receive them before other EU countries later took them in, and that Brussels would "engage in a dialogue as soon as necessary" with the Taliban.

He also said the intervention in Afghanistan had failed in its secondary goal of nation building, contradicting US President Joe Biden, who said on Monday that nation building was never an objective.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the Taliban would be judged "by their actions" following a news conference in which the group's spokesman said any opponents who remained in Afghanistan would be pardoned.

"What's important is that this transition phase will be peaceful and that will depend on what the transition government actually does as soon as it's in place, in terms of whether we can believe their statements," Maas said.

Image source, Johno Lee

A former British soldier who lost his leg while serving in Afghanistan says he "can't understand how the country was allowed to fall in less than two weeks".

Johno Lee, now a Conservative county councillor in Nottinghamshire, UK, was injured in a minefield explosion in October 2007.

He said he was in "complete disbelief" at the way events had unfolded in recent weeks.

"To see areas where we literally gave blood, sweat, tears and limbs to hold it from Taliban fighting, to give people a better life, fall within hours is absolutely heartbreaking,".

The 38-year-old said he felt like the sacrifices he and other veterans made had been "wiped out".

Read more here.

Reality Check

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I expect that we will increase our aid budget for development and humanitarian purposes, probably by 10%, is what I have in mind, on last year. We want to try and make sure it doesn't go through the Taliban."

One would assume by "last year" that Mr Raab was referring to aid spending from 2020-2021, when the UK gave £167.5m of aid to Afghanistan.

That was before the government cut the foreign aid budget earlier this year. Prior to today, aid to Afghanistan was set to fall to £37.5m, an annual reduction of £130m. However, if, as Raab has implied, a further 10% is added to the aid given in 2020-2021, that would bring the UK's spending in Afghanistan up to £184.25m.

If a 10% increase was applied to the post-cuts budget then it would represent a massive decrease on the 2020-2021 budget.

We have asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to clarify the position but they have yet to comment.

Anna Holligan
BBC News Hague correspondent

Afghan staff arrived at the Dutch embassy in Kabul on Sunday to find the building empty.

According to the Netherlands' Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch personnel had been lifted from their beds on Saturday night by US soldiers, who told them the compound was about to be raided.

The Dutch rapidly left for the airport.

Sigrid Kaag explained they were caught off guard, surprised by the speed with which the Taliban advanced.

She blamed a 'communication breakdown', which apparently meant in the midst of the rapid Dutch evacuation there was no time to inform the Afghan employees.

In parliament Dutch politicians demanded answers.

Why was the government so late to recognise the rapidly deteriorating situation?

Why, as recently as last week, did the Dutch oppose an European Commission proposed moratorium on deporting Afghans whose asylum applications had been rejected?

Western nations are under pressure to provide answers, and reassurances, that the Afghans who trusted and invested their hopes in them, haven’t been abandoned.

Sigrid Kaag told parliament she hopes the local embassy staff can be rescued within days, but warned they had no influence or control, and there were no guarantees those left behind would reach the airport.