The Taliban have raided the closed Indian consulates in the Kandahar and Herat provinces of Afghanistan on Wednesday, reports Hindustan Times. According to the reports, the Taliban carried out searches inside the two consulates and took away parked vehicles parked outside both embassies.
During the raids, the Taliban fighters searched cupboards for papers to find details about Afghans who worked for NDS, the state-run intelligence agency. However, no details are available about what is happening with the consulate and the Embassy in Jalalabad and Kabul.
Reports from Kandahar revealed that the Taliban fighters broke the locks of the Indian consulate to enter the premises. In addition, they took away parked diplomatic vehicles with them.
Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, is currently taken control by nearly 6,000 cadres of the Haqqani Network. Anas Haqqani, brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the terrorist group and deputy leader of the Taliban, have also met former President Hamid Karzai, Chairman HCNR Abdullah Abdullah and Hezb-e-Islami veteran Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Taliban has reportedly restricted the movements of both Karzai and Abdullah.
As per reports, the Taliban is holding negotiations to convince both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah to formally hand over power to the Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in the Presidential Palace in a staged event. Sirajuddin Haqqani is leading negotiations from Pakistan’s Quetta, where the Taliban’s council of leaders, the Quetta Shura, is based.
As the Haqqani network takes control of Kabul, another Taliban faction headed by Mullah Yaqoob, son of the late Mullah Omar and head of Taliban military commission, intends to take over of power and government from Kandahar, the traditional seat of Pashtuns. Earlier, Mullah Baradar, who is trying to be the first President of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, met Mullah Yaqoob after arriving from Doha on August 18.
Taliban helps to evacuate Indians from Afghanistan
Earlier, there were reports that the Taliban had themselves escorted the Indians from the embassy to the airport amid the chaos on the streets.
According to a report published by Pakistani daily Dawn, the Indian government had approached the Taliban to allow the Indians to leave the country after the Indians were unable to reach the airport due to the road blockades put up by the Taliban. Around 50 people who had gathered at the Indian embassy after the Taliban reached the city were already evacuated on Sunday itself, and the rest, around 150 people, were scheduled to be evacuated on the next day as the Indian govt had decided to close the mission in Kabul.
The news reports had surfaced a day after the Indian government had evacuated 120 people working at the Indian embassy in Afghanistan in a military transport plane.
The aircraft took off from the Hamid Karzai International Airport at around 8 AM Kabul time on Tuesday and landed at Jamnagar Air Base in Gujarat. The people evacuated by the flight included officials and security personnel from the Indian embassy in Kabul and some other Indian nationals. From Jamnagar, they were sent to their respective destinations.
