#Afghancrisis || PM Modi chairs meeting with NSA,Shah, Rajnath as Taliban enter Panjshir

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the situation in Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban captured the main road and some administrative buildings on the floor of the Panjshir Valley amidst accusations of Pakistani aerial assistance to scatter the National Resistance Front (NRF).

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval, who constitute a high level group on Afghanistan, along with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar currently not in the country, had first met six days back in a meeting chaired by PM Modi.

At a press conference to announce the “defeat” of the Panjshir rebels, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid again assured an inclusive government which will not depend on any outside force, including Pakistan. But NRF leader Ahmad Massoud, in an audio message, alleged that it was Pakistan’s ISI spy agency which had assisted and egged on the Taliban to fight against the Panjshiris.

This was an echo of 1996 when the ISI had allegedly instructed the Mujahideen to kill former Afghan President Mohd Najibullah who was then dragged out of a UN compound and hanged to death.

However, both Massoud and Amrullah Saleh had melted in the rugged mountainside but the NRF’s media face Fahim Dashti and a prominent commander Gen Abdul Wudod Zara were killed on Sunday night allegedly by a Pakistani drone.

In this context, Iran “strongly warned” the Taliban against crossing “red lines” and its Foreign Office was examining the possibility of “foreign intervention” in Panjshir attacks after the audio message by Massoud.

The Iranian Foreign Office said the “martyrdom” of Panjshir commanders was “utterly disappointing” and noted that the Taliban offensive took place even after Massoud had supported a plan, put forward by religious clerics, for a negotiated settlement.

The meeting chaired by PM Modi is also to have taken note of the presence of ISI chief in Afghanistan amid government formation talks by the Taliban with reports suggesting differences between the Taliban and Haqqani network on the name of Haibatullah Akundzada as the supreme leader.

The meeting also deliberated on the measures to be taken for full and safe evacuation of Indian nations from Afghanistan and the minorities who might want to come.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that the province, which is north of the capital, was now held by their fighters.

“We tried our best to solve the problem through negotiations, and they rejected talks and then we had to send our forces to fight,” Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul later Monday.

The resisting forces were led by the former vice president, Amrullah Saleh, and also the son of the iconic anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud. Experts had doubted that the holdout efforts could succeed long-term against the Taliban, whose rapid advance through Afghanistan met little resistance in the final days of America’s 20-year war in the country.

The US withdrew its last troops a week ago and ended a harrowing airlift to evacuate Western citizens and their Afghan allies that was marred by scenes of desperation and horrific violence.

Many people are still hoping to leave the country, but with Kabul’s airport not yet running international flights, their choices are few. In the country’s north, officials said Sunday that at least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people have been unable to leave the country for days. But there were conflicting accounts about why.

The US is under pressure to help the remaining Americans and green card holders leave the country, and it has promised to work with the new Taliban rulers do that but it has given no timeframe.

An Afghan official at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif said that the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, he said they had left the airport while the situation was being sorted out.

But the top Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the group included Americans and that they had boarded planes but the Taliban were not letting them take off, effectively holding them hostage.”
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told Fox News Sunday that American citizens and Afghan interpreters were being kept on six planes.