Taliban begins outlining how it will govern Afghanistan – as evacuation drive steps up
The Taliban has begun to set out how it plans to run Afghanistan after its takeover, saying former government experts will be brought in and fighters will continue to demonstrate restraint.
A Taliban official outlined on Saturday morning how separate teams will deal with internal security and the financial crisis that is set to impact the country.
It comes as the UK races to help its own citizens and Afghans who have worked with the British flee the country after US President Joe Biden indicated rescue missions must be completed within 10 days.
So far NATO said about 12,000 foreigners and Afghans working for embassies and international aid groups had been evacuated since Taliban insurgents entered the capital a week ago, but the security situation around Kabul airport is worsening.
Children wait for the next flight out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday after being told they are on the list to depart
The Taliban official said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s political leader, will delegate responsibility to commanders and meet former leaders, local militia commanders, policy makers and religious scholars in the coming days.
“Our fighters will continue to demonstrate restraint,” the official added.
He said no foreigners were being kidnapped, but the group was “questioning some of them before they exit the country”.
Earlier, an official said that its members would be accountable for their actions and the group will investigate reports of reprisals and atrocities carried out.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that so far 13 countries had agreed to temporarily host at-risk Afghans evacuated from Afghanistan and another 12 had agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees – including Americans and others leaving Afghanistan – as they continue to ship thousands of people out of the country.
Tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan are waiting anxiously to see whether the US will deliver on Mr Biden’s promise to evacuate all Americans and all Afghans who helped the war effort, with American helicopters picking up people from locations all around Kabul, beyond the chaotic airport and Taliban checkpoints.
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People are being crushed in the crowds outside Kabul’s airport.
Bahrain said it would allow rescue flights to use its facilities, after the US faced issues on Friday because its facilities at Qatari Al Udeid Air Base rapidly filled up.
The United Arab Emirates also said it would host up to 5,000 Afghans before “their departure to other countries”.
A NATO officials admitted the process of evacuating those it deems as qualified was “slow, as it is risky, for we don’t want any form of clashes with Taliban members or civilians outside the airport”.
While increasing numbers of people are being able to depart via the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, the scenes outside where thousands are waiting have been described by Sky correspondent Stuart Ramsay as among the most desperate yet.
According to an official from Switzerland, which has postponed a charter flight to Uzbekistan aimed at helping the evacuation effort the security situation around Kabul airport has worsened significantly in the last hours.
People fleeing the country are continuing to flow across the borders into neighbouring countries with some 400 having arrived in Uzbekistan and pictures showing people crossing into Pakistan.
There were fears that an ensuing migration crisis could exacerbate regional diplomatic feuds, Greece having said it won’t accept being the “gateway for irregular flows into the EU,” and that it considers Turkey to be a safe place for Afghans, even though Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Afghans.
On Friday, Greece said it had completed a 40-kilometre fence on its natural border with Turkey, which it said had been finished “at a fast and intensified pace in view of the developments outside the borders of the country”.
Earlier, a Taliban official said the new Taliban model of Afghan government may not be democracy by the same strict Western definition, but would protect everyone’s rights.
In its dialogue with a number of different officials and groups, the spokesman said it had been discussing how to ensure Western powers leave the country on amicable terms.
A senior official in the ousted government, Abdullah Abdullah, tweeted that he and former president Hamid Karzai met with the Taliban’s acting governor for Kabul on Saturday, who “assured us that he would do everything possible for the security of the people” of the city.
World
25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK
A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.
It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.
Pic: Reuters
The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.
MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.
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‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.
‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’
In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.
The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.
Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.
Read more:
WHO: Gaza faces ‘manmade’ starvation
UN: People in Gaza ‘walking corpses’
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Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.
For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state – despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.
The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
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Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
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‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
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Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
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Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
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