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The desperation of those in Afghanistan is heart-rending.

It’s in the faces of those who sit for hours with their children and their suitcases outside the building where one of the few airlifts is being organised.

It’s contained in the dozens of emails sent to me: “You are a journalist. I am too. Please help me. You are my only hope. If I die, tell the UK government that there was a girl that was killed by the Taliban just because of doing something for her people and her country.”

It’s in the multiple texts from human rights defenders who tell me the Taliban are knocking on their door and they don’t want to die.

“Please will anyone help us?”

It’s in the tears of a young journalist who silently shows us a video of himself where he’s being beaten by a Talib.

The Talib is using the butt of his weapon to hit his legs and back. He then ties the reporter’s hands and drags him along by rope that he’s attached to the back of his motorbike.

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The torture and humiliation went on for two days before he escaped. The video is a few years old but the trauma is very present day – and back then, the Taliban were not in charge.

Now they are holding the guns and the levers of power. “If they catch me again, they will kill me,” the journalist says. This desperation is everywhere.

Talibs at the market checkpoint
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The Taliban claim they have changed

The state of Qatar is one of only two nations trying to operate airlifts. Pakistan is the other. But this involves careful and challenging negotiations with the Taliban who go through every flight list and examine every name on it.

The evacuation may be officially over. (It ended with the pull out of the foreign troops at the end of August).

But there are still thousands of terrified families who no longer see Afghanistan as their home and who fear for their lives.

Among them are those who have British and other foreign passports. We see them waving their red or new blue UK passports outside the barricaded building which is guarded by armed Talibs but which beyond, lies the route to safety and home.

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Afghanistan: Women living in fear

They’re struggling to get their names on the flight manifest and many tell us they feel abandoned by the British government.

Like many Afghans, they have large extended families often with multiple relatives employed in the same field – who once worked for the British embassy or British-funded charities or British-run projects rebuilding Afghanistan.

“My father worked for the British embassy”, one tells me. “He has a letter of commendation.” He does and it’s sent to me.

But the commendation once so proudly received is now tantamount to a Taliban death sentence.

The Taliban promised a general amnesty for those who worked with the former government they ousted and the foreign invaders they chased out – but on the ground, the reality is very different. There are scores being settled and revenge being sought.

Taliban fighters repeatedly try to stop us from filming the people trying to secure a ticket out of Afghanistan.

One keeps on hitting my colleague Richie Mockler’s camera, others put their hands in front of his lens. They pull and shove our Afghan colleague who tries to put himself between the Talibs and the Sky team.

The paperwork we have been issued by the Taliban themselves giving us permission to film in the country appears to be worthless at this point. We are repeatedly urged to show “the real image” of the Taliban – by the Taliban and constantly told they have “changed” and evolved.

But there is a real fear amongst those who worked alongside the foreigners and they are not reassured by these claims.

The Taliban don’t want people to leave the country. They don’t want images broadcast of people trying to get out. They want the foreign governments to return, set up their embassies and restart the aid which the bulk of the country has become so reliant on.

Because of this, there are strict rules about who gets on the flight list and it is restricted to those with foreign passports – not their dependants, not the Afghans who worked for the foreigners, not those now being targeted.

It’s tough for those trying to operate the flight lists and work with these conditions. We see the Qatari officials working through the night trying to juggle passports, IDs, and coordinate with multiple countries to verify people on the flight list.

“But you have no passport,” I overhear one say down the telephone. “You need to have a passport to travel – and a visa, only then we can help you.”

They are people with families themselves. They know how hard it must be to leave behind an elderly parent or a sister who is now a Taliban target – and the decision-making does not get any easier.

We meet three men in a Kabul cafe who all have British passports but large families with many relatives who do not.

“I’ve lived in Ilford for about 20 years,” one tells us. “I met Boris (Johnson) when I was a taxi driver. He asked me if he thought he could be Mayor of London. He was that uncertain. I said yes go for it. You can do it, Boris.

“But now, I’m very disappointed with him. He’s left us all here. We are British taxpayers. We don’t pay our taxes for the government to invade countries. We pay them to get their help but we aren’t getting any help for our families. My MP is trying to help us but the Foreign Office isn’t even replying to him. We are told just to wait.”

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Hospitals struggle under Taliban rule

There’s a sudden rush after waiting all day to board the convoy the Qataris have organised to take hundreds of “approved” refugees to the airport. But the Taliban have disputed the flight list that had been drawn up.

The bulk of people who were on it are now NOT on it. Only three coaches carrying about 40 people set off for the heavily guarded airport. There are dozens of armed Taliban around the perimeter wearing army fatigues and special ops goggles, flak jackets, helmets and ammunition belts, carrying brand new American weapons.

They wave the convoy through and the families heave their suitcases out of the coaches and move quickly towards the airport entrance. Qatari officials are trying to rush them through. The deadline is dusk. The plane cannot fly after dark because of security and more practically because there are no lights on the runway.

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The young mother of two toddlers weeps next to me as she lines up waiting to be patted down at airport security. But there are no women to do the physical security checks for the line of females right now. The new Taliban-controlled Afghanistan doesn’t see much of a role for females.

They’ve been told not to report for work unless they are health workers and girls have been told not to return to school “for the time being”.

“My country is gone,” the young mother tells me as she’s cradling her baby girl. “We cannot live here anymore. I don’t know if I will ever return. Everything is broken.”

A short time later, exasperated Qatari officials are returning to the queues of waiting refugees with handfuls of passports.

“The flight has been cancelled,” they say. “There’s no one at immigration.”

We hear the plane taking off – empty – and the refugees turn around to spend another night wondering if they’re going to be allowed to leave this country they don’t recognise anymore.

The Qataris again work throughout the night trying to hammer out an agreement with the Taliban to allow the plane to land in Kabul, and to decide on a flight list that is acceptable to everybody.

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How popular is the Taliban in Afghanistan?

By mid-afternoon the following day, it seems there is. Two hundred and thirty-six people are taken in a convoy to the airport this time after an official called “extensive consultation with parties on the ground”.

It’s the fourth flight Qatar has managed to organise and by far the largest passenger evacuation since 31 August when the foreign troops were still in Afghanistan and the airlifts were in full flow.

This time, the Taliban have called back the former airport staff and there are two women security workers. They tell me how their lives have changed so dramatically in such a short time.

“They tell us to wear long dresses (abaya), to cover our heads. They even tell me I must cut my nails, that they are too long.” She pulls off her plastic gloves to show me beautifully manicured nails now forbidden under the new Taliban rules.

The refugees take final pictures of their country as they board the flight to safety and a new, uncertain life. Few think they’ll be back soon – and they leave behind thousands still fearing for their lives who are trapped.

Alex Crawford reports from Kabul with cameraman Richie Mockler and producers Chris Cunningham and Mark Grant.

Additional pictures by Chris Cunningham.

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Every shop and home burned or ransacked: The Syrian city engulfed in tribal violence

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Every shop and home burned or ransacked: The Syrian city engulfed in tribal violence

The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.

The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.

By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.

Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.

For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.

A fighter aims a gun
A body is wrapped in a blanket

Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.

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“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.

A fighter in Syria
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Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children

Fighters at a gas station
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Fighters at a petrol station

Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.

We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.

A burning building
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Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked

A burned out car

Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.

Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.

The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.

A doctor talks to Sky's Alex Crawford
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Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence

The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.

The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.

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Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

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Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.

Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.

As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

Clashes between Bedouin and Druze groups further tensions in the Middle East

In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.

“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.

The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.

The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.

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Why is Israel bombing Syria?

After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.

He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.

It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.

It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.

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‘Horrific incident’ at sheriff training facility in LA – at least three people dead

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'Horrific incident' at sheriff training facility in LA - at least three people dead

At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.

A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.

The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).

Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.

The Eugene Biscailuz Center Academy Training in East Los Angeles. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
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The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles

Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.

“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”

California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.

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“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.

Media and law enforcement stage near the site of an explosion at the LA County Sheriff's Special Operations Bureau on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
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Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP

The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.

“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.

“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.

The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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