As thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country, Turkey has announced that it is building a wall along its border with Iran in the face of a potential new influx of refugees from Afghanistan.

The barrier will be 295km long when completed, fortified by barbed wire and trenches, according to an AFP report.

“We will intensify our works, and we will reinforce the understanding that ‘our borders are impassable," said Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, according to a report by Hurriyet Daily.

"A big part of it has been completed. Nearly 150 kilometers of trenches were dug. Additional reinforcements were made to our border outposts and base areas."

India has become the latest country to evacuate its embassy in Kabul, with a special flight bringing the country's ambassador and other staff members back to India.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Arimdam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said the decision had been made to move them back "immediately".

That leaves only a few foreign embassies operating in Kabul.

Indonesia has said it will retain a "small diplomatic mission" in the country although it is also evacuating its embassy.

Russia earlier said it would only partially evacuate its embassy staff. Its ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov is set to meet the Taliban later today.

The Chinese embassy in Afghanistan has not commented on what it plans to do next, but warned local Chinese nationals to "pay close attention to the security situation".

Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is now the President and Chief Executive of global humanitarian organisation, the International Rescue Committee.

He told the BBC's David Eades that his staff on the ground in Afghanistan are scared and uncertain about the future.

He also addressed President Biden's defence of US policy - highlighting the plight of those left behind.

India has announced a new category of e-visas to fast track the applications of Afghans who want to go to India.

A home ministry spokesman said the new e-visa would be called the "e-Emergency X-Misc Visa".

It is unclear how such Afghans would be able to apply for the visa or even get to India.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres had earlier asked the international community not to abandon the Afghans.

In a tweet earlier, he urged "all countries to be willing to receive Afghan refugees and refrain from deportations.

Some countries have already said that they will accept a limited number of refugees. Canada has said it will take in 20,000 vulnerable people including women. A number of Nato member states have also said they will pause deportations and welcome in more refugees.

India's annoubcement comes as thousands of Afghans are desperately trying to leave Kabul - and in heartbreaking scenes on Monday some of them were even pictured clinging onto a military jet as it took off.

Image source, Getty Images

The hashtag #InterpolArrestGhani is trending on Afghan social media as hundreds are calling for president Ashraf Ghani to be arrested by international policing unit Interpol.

He is being widely criticised in social media posts, with some calling him a "fugitive", and others called for him to be prosecuted.

Mr Ghani fled the country when the Taliban entered the capital Kabul. Russia's state news agency reported that Mr Ghani had fled with four cars and a helicopter full of cash.

Details of his whereabouts are not confirmed but reports say he has flown to neighbouring Uzbekistan.

The president has also been criticised by other Afghan politicians for leaving.

"God will hold him accountable and the nation will also judge," said Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of Afghanistan's High Council for National Reconciliation.

The Washington Post is reporting that human remains were found in the wheel well of a US transport plane that departed from Kabul airport on Monday.

One video yesterday from Kabul airport had shown desperate Afghans running alongside and climbing onto a US Air Force plane that was taxiing on the runway.

Another widely circulated video appeared to show two people falling to their deaths from an airborne plane. Quoting an unnamed official, the American newspaper reported that the fall had "absolutely happened".

The official said the two people were Afghans who had climbed on the landing gear as the plane took off in an attempt to stow away.

The newspaper reported that the pilots declared an emergency when they could not put up their landing gear and landed in a third country. The crew had found the remains when doing an inspection.

Image source, Getty Images

An all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan who made headlines in 2017 are now desperately looking to leave the country, US human rights lawyer Kimberley Motley told broadcaster CBS News.

She appealed to Canada to allow the girls entry saying "we are literally begging the Canadian government".

She added that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been an "amazing supporter" of the girls when they met in 2018.

Ms Motley said the girls were "extremely terrified... they live in Herat where the universities are turning girls away. Women are showing up for work and being turned away. The girls are seeing this [and they're] worried. They want to continue to be educated but it's an extremely tenuous situation for them".

Image source, Reuters

President Biden has promised $500m in aid to Afghan refugees.

A statement , externalfrom the White House said Mr Biden was sanctioning the use of a US emergency refugee fund "for the purpose of meeting unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs of refugees, victims of conflict, and other persons at risk as a result of the situation in Afghanistan".

The statement added that the money could be used through international organisations and charities as well as government departments and agencies.

The move comes just hours after President Biden strongly defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. He insisted that if he had not kept to a departure agreement negotiated by the previous administration of Donald Trump, the US risked a return to years of open conflict with strengthened Taliban forces.

But he made it clear that any attack on US personnel engaged in the withdrawal operation would be met with devastating force if necessary.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Late on Sunday night, a car carrying a group of unknown men arrived at Aadil Ahmad Safi’s home in central Kabul and asked the guard whether someone working for the government lived there.

When the guard told them that no official lived there, the car turned back.

“This morning we saw Facebook posts that people wearing wigs and acting like the Taliban were going around robbing and stealing from people,” Safi, 26, told me on the phone.

“I have no idea who these men in the car were, but I suspect they came to rob our place.”

Safi, 26, is a human resources manager with a chain of private schools in Kabul. Some 2,300 students study in three schools, including 300 in a co-educational branch. Safi returned to Kabul earlier this year after getting a degree in business administration in India.

“I returned home for a better future. But everything looks uncertain now. For someone who has never lived in such a situation, it is difficult to say what the future holds,” Safi said.

“The only silver lining at the moment is that there has been no violence in Kabul. I hope the new regime ensures a cleaner government and a more equal society. There was so much corruption under the previous government. You needed to bribe officials for every service. Law and order was bad.”

Safi said if the Taliban wished for international recognition they need to “give rights to women and respect people”. They will also have to prove that they are “just not pretending to be good for the people” now.

He says most of the shops in Kabul remain open. Schools and private offices are shut.

“Our only worry at the moment is the robbing and looting by people posing as the Taliban.”

Hello and welcome to another day of the BBC's coverage of the situation in Afghanistan. If you're just joining us now, here's what you need to know to bring you up to speed:

• US President Joe Biden has defended the decision to pull out of Afghanistan, saying he would not have passed the war on to a fifth president
• He conceded that the country had folded "quicker than anticipated", but re-iterated that he did "not regret my decision to end America's warfighting"
• Leaders from other countries have also spoken. German leader Angela Merkel said the focus now was to evacuate those who had worked with German forces
• We saw desperate scenes of panic yesterday at the Kabul airport as residents tried to flee - three men reportedly died after falling from the underside of a plane they were clinging to shortly after take-off
• People in Afghanistan have spoken to the BBC of their fear of living under Taliban rule, with many saying they are searching for a way out
• UN Secretary-General António Guterres has asked the international community not to abandon the people of Afghanistan

BBC Radio 5 Live

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, has been speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast.

He told Rachel Burden that he had been speaking to friends in Afghanistan and they have told him that families are being dragged into the streets and killed.

“Friends of mine are telling me that people they know, people we worked with when I was working down in Lashkar Gah have been murdered in their homes for having worked with us.

“Their families are murdered - they are dragged into the streets and killed. It’s absolutely horrific.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul with four cars and a helicopter full of cash, Russia's state news agency RIA has said.

The agency quoted embassy spokesperson Nikita Ishchenko who said the collapse of the regime was "most eloquently characterised by the way Ghani fled.

"Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac," he was quoted as saying.

Mr Ischenko cited "witnesses" as the source of his information - though this cannot be confirmed.

It comes as Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov told a local radio station that the situation in Kabul under the Taliban was "better than it was under Ashraf Ghani".

Russia's criticism comes amid rising tensions with the US.

Image source, Getty Images

Sima Kotecha
BBC Newsnight

US President Joe Biden "has a lot to do" and must "take a bold step" to protect the Afghan people, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai told BBC Two's Newsnight.

The Pakistani women's rights activist found refuge in the UK after being shot in the head by the Taliban at the age of 15 in 2012.

She said it was time for world leaders - especially the UK and US - to act to protect civilians and refugees in the country.

"Countries need to open their borders to Afghan refugees", Yousafzai said.

In an exclusive interview with Newsnight on the plight of Afghanistan, Yousafzai accused America of making irresponsible statements in the light of the Taliban takeover.

"I think the way the US described this war and how it was declared as a victory, I think this sends a very wrong impression," she said.

Read more on this story here.

Vikas Pandey
BBC News

Mazar-i-Sharif was one the last government strongholds in northern Afghanistan to fall. The city, one of the major cultural and economic centres of the country, fell swiftly - without much fight from the Afghan army or the local militia.

This left the residents shocked and in disbelief. Shops and businesses shut quickly and people locked themselves inside their houses. The city became a "ghost town" overnight.

Two days later, some shops have opened and the Taliban have been seen convincing people to go to work and open businesses, says Nasim Javid* who has been explaining the ground situation to us since Saturday.

"It seems eerily quiet - there has been no shooting or blasts - something we expected when the Taliban took over," says Mr Javid.

But he is worried that this might just be a "honeymoon period" before the Taliban return to their usual behaviour.

"There is still a lot of fear, specially among the non-Pashtun minorities like the Hazaras and the Uzbeks - their existence was under attack when the Taliban were in power in the 1990s."

*Name has been changed to protect identity

Image source, EPA

The Taliban have seized back control of Afghanistan, almost two decades after they were thrown out of power by a US-led coalition.

Emboldened by the withdrawal of US troops, and facing little resistance from Afghan forces, they have swept to power in just a few weeks.

Afghan citizens have seen various changes to their lives when the country was controlled by its civilian government - in particular, many girls and women were able to attend school and university.

In 2003, 2.4 million girls were in school. That figure now stands at around 3.5 million, and around a third of students at public and private universities are women.

The future they now face is uncertain.

Our Visual Journalism Team has put together more graphics like these to help put the events of recent days into context. You can find more of them here.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has asked the international community not to abandon the people of Afghanistan.

In a tweet earlier, he urged "all countries to be willing to receive Afghan refugees and refrain from deportations.

The UN refugee agency estimates that about 400,000 Afghans have been internally displaced due to fighting this year.

Some countries have already said that they will accept refugees - though within quotas. Canada has said it will take in 20,000 vulnerable people including women. A number of Nato member states have also said they will pause deportations and welcome in more refugees.

The US has already evacuated about 1,200 people with Special Immigrant Visas - given to interpreters and other helpers of US forces at risk - and has plans to evacuate about 3,500 more.

It has also announced plans to accept thousands more refugees, but they would have to apply from a third country - a difficult ask given that the Taliban control all of Afghanistan's border points. The country is also landlocked meaning that the only way out is by road.

Zhaoyin Feng
BBC News, Washington DC

Image source, Getty Images

As the Taliban seizes Afghanistan, China has toed its pragmatic and non-interference line in diplomacy.

Unlike the US and Russia, China has never fought in Afghanistan - but it shares a border with the country.

While relatively short, the China-Afghanistan border is critical to China's national security, as it adjoins the Xinjiang region, which Beijing sees as a hotbed of terrorism, extremism and separatism.

But Beijing appears to be extremely cautious about the potential of filling the power vacuum left by America.

Recent editorials on state media highlight that Afghanistan is known as the "graveyard of empires" and cautions China not to follow in the footsteps of the US and the former Soviet Union. "We believe China will use its influence [in Afghanistan] very cautiously," an editorial published in Global Times writes.

In the short term, Beijing is likely to continue building a relationship with the Taliban, especially on economics and trade, and seek reassurance that a Taliban government won't support Uyghur militant forces.

In return, Beijing will largely stay on the sidelines of Afghanistan's affairs, as China believes: "How you govern your country is none of our business, as long as 'terrorists' are not at our doorstep."

Just miles from the White House, Fawzia Etemadi and her cousin, Hamid Naweed, watched President Biden’s address in numb silence.

"We trusted Joe Biden, but we are a little disappointed - the world is disappointed," Fawzia said.

"Afghans have suffered for the last 40 years. America is the world’s father, democracy’s father. No-one can explain why this is happening."

Like thousands of Afghans living in northern Virginia, Fawzia and Hamid both fled Afghanistan as refugees in the 1980s and ultimately settled a few miles away from the nation’s capital. The area is home to one of the largest Afghan diasporas in the country.

Today, as we sip tea at Afghan Bistro, the family’s restaurant, Fawzia and Hamid admit they’ve spent much of the last week in stunned disbelief.

"I don’t know how the Taliban came in power so fast," said Hamid, a former professor at the University of Kabul, "but I hope that the world will recognise that people of Afghanistan need their freedom and independence and we deserve to live in peace."

Rifleman Craig Monaghan, who is from Manchester, suffered serious head injuries and lost many friends while serving in Afghanistan.

He is still living with the consequences. Ten of his colleagues were killed, and 12 others have taken their own lives since.

As the US continues its withdrawal from the Afghan capital, social media has been flooded with pictures of a helicopter evacuating people from the American embassy in Kabul.

Many people have compared it to a similar image taken in 1975, of people scrambling into a helicopter on a rooftop in Saigon, at the close of the Vietnam War.

So what was the fall of Saigon and is it a fair comparison to the situation in Kabul?

Read more here

Image source, AFP