Afghanistan crisis live updates: India allowed to operate two flights daily to evacuate citizens from Kabul

The Vatican's newspaper is calling on the international community to welcome Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban, expressing incredulousness "that before deciding to abandon the country no one thought through such a foreseeable scenario or did anything to avoid it.''

Indonesia has evacuated 26 of its citizens, including 5 diplomats, from Kabul on a special military flight to Jakarta. Indonesia's foreign minister Retno Marsudi said in a tweet that the Friday flight that would land later in the day also carried five Filipinos and two Afghans, including the spouse of an Indonesian national and a local staff member of the Indonesian Embassy.

Amnesty International says the Taliban were responsible for the torture and killing of several members of Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic minority last month. The rights group said Friday that its researchers in Afghanistan spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine men in the village of Mundarakht on July 4-6. It said six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death.

The Italian charity Pangea helped tens of thousands of Afghan women become self-supporting in the last 20 years. Now, dozens of its staff in Afghanistan are in hiding with their families amid reports that Taliban are going door-to-door in search of citizens who worked with Westerners. Pangea founder Luca Lo Presti has asked that 30 Afghan charity workers and their families be included on Italian flights that have carried 500 people to safety this week, but the requests were flatly refused. On Thursday, the military coordinator told him: "Not today.'' Dozens of flights already have brought hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers to safety in Europe since the Taliban captured the capital of Kabul. Those lucky enough to be rescued from feared reprisals have mostly been Afghans who worked directly with foreign missions, along with their families.

Al Qaedas Yemeni branch has congratulated the Taliban on their takeover of Afghanistan."This victory and empowerment reveals to us that jihad and fighting represent the Sharia-based, legal, and realistic way to restore rights (and) expel the invaders and occupiers," Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in a statement."As for the game of democracy and working with simple pacifism, it is a deceptive mirage, a fleeting shadow, and a vicious circle that starts with a zero and ends with it," said the statement carried by SITE Intelligence group, which monitors extremist networks worldwide, a global news wire reported.

Indian embassy officials shifted about 60 Hindus and Sikhs on Thursday from Gurdwara Singh Sabha in Karte-Parwan, Afghanistan, to a safe place for evacuation to India, local Sikhs from Kabul said. Many of these Sikhs have said they prefer evacuation to Canada or the US rather than India because they have no roots there and because of the condition of evacuees who have been in India for a while.

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him, the German public broadcaster said. The militants were conducting a house-to-house search for the journalist, who now works in Germany, DW said Thursday.

According to reports, Taliban conducted a search at closed Indian consulates in Kandahar and Herat. Taliban militants were reportedly searching for documents and paper.

Taliban cadres are allowed to accompany Afghan civilians entering mosques for weekly Friday prayers, a Taliban official told Reuters on Friday. The official also said several countries and organisations have reached out to Taliban leaders for help in evacuating their nationals or employees from Kabul.

The United States struggled Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an Aug 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be airlifted from the chaotic country. Taliban fighters and their checkpoints ringed the airport — major barriers for Afghans who fear that their past work with Westerners makes them prime targets for retribution.

However, crowds continued to throng outside the airport, desperate to flee, said the official, who declined to be identified. The Taliban took over Kabul on Sunday.

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke with India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Thursday over the chaotic situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Sunday. Their sudden victory, which comes as the US withdraws from the country following a 20-year-war, has sparked chaos at Kabul's airport, from where America and allied nations are trying to safely evacuate thousands of citizens and allies.

The Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with US and Nato forces, a confidential United Nations document says, despite the militants vowing no revenge against opponents.