Image source, AREF KARIMI/AFP

Just days after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, there have been reports of girls returning to school in the western city of Herat.

Girls chatting while walking down corridors - a scene many feared would be banned under the Taliban - have been reported by the AFP news agency.

When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s, women and girls were mostly denied education and employment.

“We want to progress like other countries,” student Roqia told AFP. “And we hope the Taliban will maintain security. We don’t want war, we want peace in our country.”

It comes as the chief of field operations of the UN children's agency (Unicef) voiced cautious optimism about working with the Taliban, citing their early expressions of support for girls' education.

"We have ongoing discussions. We are quite optimistic based on those discussions," Unicef's chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, told a UN briefing, adding that 11 out of 13 field offices were currently operational.

"We have not a single issue with the Taliban in those field offices."

But not everyone is buying the Taliban's reassurances on the rights of women.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC that it was hard to believe "the PR operation that we're currently seeing".

Iran has closed its border with Afghanistan, an interior ministry official told state-run Mizan news agency.

Hossein Qasemi, director of the ministry's office for border affairs, said authorities in Iran's three provinces on the border with Afghanistan had been instructed to turn back citizens of Afghanistan - citing developments in the country, and "coronavirus restrictions".

It comes days after Qasemi said Iran was setting up refugee camps along its Afghan border, in anticipation of an influx of people fleeing the Taliban.

According to the UN, as of October last year there are around 780,000 Afghan refugees living in Iran.

In the UK's House of Lords, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has praised the courage and sacrifice of people who have served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

"I remember a cathedral full for the funeral of a soldier, family and many colleagues silent in dignity, some wounded, mourning their loss," he recalled.

"The failure we face today is not military or diplomatic; they did all they could. It is political."

A female journalist with Afghanistan's state owned broadcaster, National Radio Television Afghanistan, has said she was prevented from continuing her work by the Taliban.

Shabnam Dawran, one of Afghanistan's most recognisable TV anchors, posted a video detailing how she was turned away from her station's office despite wearing a hijab and carrying the correct ID.

She said that guards told her that "the regime has changed. You are not allowed in here. Go home".

At a news conference yesterday Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that women would be allowed to work "within the limits of Islamic law".

On Tuesday Tolo News anchor Beheshta Arghand interviewed a Taliban spokesman in what was believed to be the first time an Afghan woman had been granted an interview inside the country.

Large queues remain at Kabul airport as Afghans and foreign citizens wait for the opportunity to board flights to leave the country.

Image source, Getty Images

Some of those who have been waiting for hours have reportedly been struggling to cope with high temperatures and a limited supply of food and water.

Image source, Getty Images

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been evacuated in recent hours, many of them to European countries including Germany, France and the Netherlands.

These images below capture the moment some Afghan families arrived at Frankfurt airport in Germany today.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

BBC Monitoring

Image source, Reuters

We mentioned just now that President Ashraf Ghani was confirmed to be in the United Arab Emirates after fleeing Kabul.

Separately, the Afghan ambassador to Tajikstan has alleged that he was carrying around $169m when he left on Sunday.

He called President Ghani's flight a "betrayal of the homeland and the nation".

Ambassador Mohammad Zahir Aghbar was speaking at a news conference at the Afghan embassy in the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

He also announced that the embassy intended to recognise Ghani's former deputy Amrullah Saleh as the acting president of Afghanistan.

In an audio message released to BBC News last night, Mr Saleh claimed that he was "the legitimate caretaker president of Afghanistan" and promised that "the war is not over".

Image source, Reuters

At least one person has been killed in clashes during the protests in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, reports say.

The death occurred as Taliban militants opened fire after local residents tried to install Afghanistan's national flag at a square in the city.

Afghanistan's fugitive President Ashraf Ghani is in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf state's foreign ministry has announced.

"The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds," a spokesperson said in a statement.

Mr Ghani fled the capital Kabul on Sunday afternoon as Taliban fighters advanced on the city.

Adam Easton
Warsaw Correspondent

Poland has evacuated close to 50 people from Afghanistan by military plane, Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz said on Wednesday.

The people, who are mostly Afghan citizens who worked with the Polish military or diplomats in Afghanistan, were flown to Uzbekistan - where they are now under the care of the Polish consul.

There was also one Polish citizen among the passengers and the refugees will be flown to Poland soon by a civilian plane, he added.

Poland sent three military planes to Afghanistan to help with the evacuation of about 100 people on Tuesday.

Polish troops were present in Afghanistan for more than 20 years and the last remaining soldiers returned home at the end of June. Poland closed its embassy in Kabul in 2014.

Image source, EPA

The UK, US and European Union - along with more than a dozen other countries - have issued a joint statement saying they are "deeply worried about Afghan women and girls" following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

The statement, external calls on "those in positions of power" in the country to protect the "rights to education, work and freedom of movement" of all.

"Afghan women and girls, as all Afghan people, deserve to live in safety, security and dignity," it says, adding that "we will monitor closely" any future government.

The Taliban have said they will rule Afghanistan according to Islam's legal system, Sharia law, and that women could be actively involved in society "under an Islamic framework".

• Read more: What is Sharia law and what does it mean for Afghan women?

Image source, Getty Images

Chaotic conditions have been reported outside Kabul airport as EU governments rush to bring home their citizens as well as Afghan colleagues.

French, Dutch, German and Czech planes have all left Kabul in recent hours.

Staff at the Dutch embassy were so taken by surprise by the Taliban arrival on Sunday they did not tell Afghan colleagues they were going.

Shots were reported outside the airport on Wednesday, as crowds waited to get in.

Local reports said several people were wounded near the north gate and the Taliban were preventing people from getting to the airport.

"It's awful" Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag said, adding: "Many were there at the gates of the airport with their families."

Read more here.

Afghanistan’s former central bank governor has said that he will not return to the country despite assurances from the Taliban that former officials can return with amnesty to their jobs.

Ajmal Ahmady told BBC World News that the Taliban had been looking for him, knocking on doors at properties where he had previously lived.

He also said that he thought it was likely that the US would freeze Afghanistan's international reserves so the Taliban couldn't access them, causing currency issues.

Laurie Bristow, the UK's ambassador to Afghanistan, remains in the country and has spoken about the work his team is doing to evacuate British nationals and Afghans who have worked alongside them to safety.

"Yesterday we got about 700 people out - we're trying to scale up the speed and pace over the next couple of days," he says in a video posted on Twitter.

The ambassador is in Kabul, where he and others are working out of an evacuation handling centre to help co-ordinate efforts.

He also shared photographs of colleagues working and information for anyone still in need of assistance, external to get out of the country.

The BBC's Pashto Service reports that anti-Taliban protests are taking place in the cities of Jalalabad, Kunar and Khost, with demonstrators waving Afghan flags.

It is too early to say if it will spread nationally, but things are changing fast and the Taliban are tense, our journalists say.

In the Panjshir Valley - one of the last bastions of anti-Taliban resistance - there are unverified videos of a huge caravan of motorbikes flying flags of the former Northern Alliance. They are being called the “resistance army” of former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh, who has proclaimed himself acting president.

Officials at the Afghan embassy in Tajikistan have already put up pictures of Mr Saleh, naming him as their president.

The Taliban have not yet commented on any of these developments.

More from British politician and army veteran Tom Tugendhat, who has made an emotional address to the House of Commons as MPs discuss the crisis in Afghanistan.

After describing the joy of seeing girls attending lessons in the country, Tugendhat shared a darker memory of a father who brought his dead daughter to a UK army base and was begging for help.

After listening in silence to his speech, MPs across the House stood and clapped the Conservative MP.

Image source, European Pressphoto Agency

The Taliban say that they will rule Afghanistan according to Sharia law.

Sharia law is Islam's legal system. It is derived from both the Quran, Islam's central text, and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.

Sharia literally means "the clear, well-trodden path to water".

Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor.

It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes.

However, there are varying interpretations of how to implement Sharia.

When the Taliban were last in power they imposed an austere understanding of the law upon Afghanistan. This included brutal punishments, such as the amputation of people's hands for theft and public executions for murders and adulterers.

To read more about Sharia click here.

On Tuesday, during their first news conference since seizing control of Afghanistan, the Taliban said women would be able to be actively involved in society "under an Islamic framework".

The group has said it will rule the country according to Islam's legal system, Sharia law.

But while the Taliban said women's rights would be respected, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has told the BBC that it was hard to believe "the PR operation that we're currently seeing".

"I have seen first-hand the intolerable conditions, the oppression, the persecution of women. That's not going to change overnight," she told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Decades of conflict in Afghanistan have already led to hundreds of thousands of Afghans seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and elsewhere.

Many families crossed the borders with Pakistan and Iran, where they have made new homes and remain to this day, as this map shows.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of last year, 1,435,445 Afghans were living in Pakistan. The majority – 69% – were staying in urban areas.

Iran, meanwhile, is home to about 780,000 Afghans, the UNHCR says.

While Pakistan largely allows refugees to mix with local populations, Iran often confines refugees to camps, the organisation adds.

More now on the protests in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.

Video posted on social media appears to show gunshots being fired at a protest against the use of the Taliban flag in Afghanistan.

Protesters are seen on the streets of Jalalabad waving the country's national flag, before loud bangs are heard and the crowd disperses.

Tom Tugendhat MP has gone on to criticise President Joe Biden, saying the US president has called into question the courage of Afghan troops "I fought with".

"To claim that they ran is shameful," he said. "Those who have never fought for the colours they fly should be careful about criticising those who have."

He said it is "not armies that win wars - armies can get tactical victories and operational victories that hold the line - they can just about make room for peace for people like us to talk compromise, listen. It's nations that make war - nations endure, mobilise and muster determine and patience".

Mr Tugendhat says the West has not done that.

"This is a harsh lesson for all of us and if we are not careful this could be a very difficult lesson for our allies," he added.