Britons warned to leave Afghanistan immediately as war enters ‘deadlier and more destructive phase’
British nationals in Afghanistan are being told to leave immediately as the country moves into what the UN has described as a “deadlier and more destructive phase”.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on Friday evening issued an advisory against all travel to Afghanistan.
It added: “If you are still in Afghanistan, you are advised to leave now by commercial means because of the worsening security situation.”
Since the withdrawal of foreign forces, violence in the country has increased
It comes after Taliban fighters recaptured Zaranj in southern Nimroz, the first provincial capital to have fallen to the extremist group since it briefly held Kunduz in the north in 2016.
The Taliban posted images on social media that showed insurgents inside the local airport, as well as posing for photographs at the entrance of the city.
Nimroz is a sparsely populated region that is mostly desert, and the provincial capital has about 50,000 residents.
At least 1,000 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan during the past month, and more than half of Afghanistan’s 421 districts and district centres are now in Taliban hands, along with lucrative border crossings into Iran, Tajikistan and Pakistan.
At a special meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, Deborah Lyons, the UN envoy to Afghanistan, said the fighting and resultant human toll were worsening.
“The war in Afghanistan has entered a new, deadlier, and more destructive phase,” she said.
“The provincial capitals of Kandahar, Herat, and Lashkar Gah in particular have come under significant pressure.
“This is a clear attempt by the Taliban to seize urban centres with the force of arms.”
The fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians from their homes. Pic: AP
She added: “The human toll of this strategy is extremely distressing – and the political message is even more deeply disturbing.”
She said that 104 civilians were killed in just 10 days in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand province, as insurgents sweep across the country following the withdrawal of foreign troops earlier this year.
Also on Friday, Afghan government forces joined US aircraft in attacking Taliban positions in Helmand, where the militants control nine out of the 10 city districts.
Dawa Khan Menapal had previously been a deputy spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani. Pic: AP
Dawa Khan Menapal was shot dead while he was in his car during Friday prayers. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, the Taliban assassinated Dawa Khan Menapal, the chief of the Afghan government’s press operations for local and foreign media and previously a deputy spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani.
Mr Menapal was murdered while in his car during Friday prayers in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
It comes days after an attempt to kill the country’s acting defence minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, in a Taliban bombing that left eight people dead and 20 wounded.
The minister was unharmed.
Last month the Taliban took control of the town of Spin Boldak, near one of the country’s busiest border crossings with Pakistan.
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Thousands of people cross daily, alongside a steady stream of trucks bringing goods to the land-locked country from the Arabian Sea port city of Karachi.
However, the Taliban closed the crossing on Friday over a visa dispute, claiming Pakistan was abiding by Kabul government requirements for Afghans travelling into Pakistan. Previously, travel documents were rarely required.
“The border will stay closed until Pakistan allows all Afghans to cross on the bases of our old procedure,” said a Taliban statement.
On Friday, at least 1,500 people were waiting on both sides to pass through, with more than 600 trucks, many loaded with perishable fresh foods, backed up on both sides of the border.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.
Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.
It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.
According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.
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Man arrested over Nord Stream attacks
When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.
The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.
Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.
At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.
He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.
A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the Baltic Sea. File pic: Roscosmos via Reuters
After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.
Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.
He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.
While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.
The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.
In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.
German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.
Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.
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The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.
According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.
Spare pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. File pic: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.
On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.
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