The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting in New York at 10am local time on Monday to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan. He did acknowledge that events in the last few days had happened more quickly than anticipated. TALIBAN INSURGENCY TV
US secretary of state Antony Blinken spent a bunch of Sunday on TV defending the Biden administration, talking about the big picture plan that was always in place for the US to leave Afghanistan but often sidestepping questions about the chaotic nature of this rushed withdrawal itself. Ghani put out an extraordinary message on Facebook saying he left the country to try to avoid, essentially, a bloody war in Kabul, instead enabling the Taliban to, it seems, take control with almost no fighting. 
Afghanistan’s erstwhile president Ashraf Ghani is reported to have fled to Tashkent, the capital of neighboring Uzbekistan. The US is sending another 1,000 troops, directly to Kabul, bringing US military numbers expected in Afghanistan up to 6,000 in an attempt to execute the safe withdrawal of US nationals and Afghan support staff - between two and three times the number of soldiers that were there last week. The Taliban has said from Kabul that the war in Afghanistan “ is over”. You can also keep abreast of developments via Guardian stories on the site from my colleagues on the Taliban and Afghanistan. Here is a summary of the main events of the day. US president Joe Biden has not made any public comments so far today but is expected to address the American public and the world in the next few days.īritish prime minister Boris Johnson gave a TV interview earlier and said the Taliban should not be recognized as holding power in Afghanistan and that the country must not once again become a “breeding ground” for global terrorism. An emirate refers to a land or a reign by an emir, a Muslim religious military commander, chief or ruler. This is the title the country was given during the previous control by the Taliban, before they were ousted in late 2001 by US-led forces following the terrorist attacks on the US, which were masterminded from the country by Islamist fundamentalist group Al Qaida, led by Osama Bin Laden. There were reports earlier that the extremist insurgency was about to formally declare, from the captured presidential palace in Kabul following the escape of Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani, that the country would henceforth be known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Guardian US team is now handing over this live blog to our terrific colleagues in Australia, who will keep it running and continue to bring you all the developments promptly. 
It’s approaching 3am local time in Kabul now and the night sky is noisy with the thumping whir of large helicopters, widely understood to be the US military evacuating US nationals and Afghan support individuals from the country as fast as it possibly can. They have yet officially to declare victory and that they are now in control of the nation, but it is considered only a matter of time before that happens. It’s been an extraordinarily dramatic 24 hours in Afghanistan as the Taliban has taken over the capital, Kabul, essentially sweeping to power in the country.
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