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

India is in constant touch with the US for quick evacuation of 400-450 Indian nationals still in Afghanistan, official sources said. The foreign ministry asked all Indian nationals requiring assistance to contact the special Afghanistan cell putting out more telephone numbers.

German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle says the Taliban shot and killed a family member of one of their reporters in Afghanistan and severely injured a second family member. The broadcaster said in a statement on Thursday that Taliban fighters were looking for the Deutsche Welle reporter and searching homes in western Afghanistan. It said other family members managed to escape. Deutsche Well says the reporter himself, whose identity was not revealed, is already based in Germany where he is also working.

“We are working with international partners in this regard, principally the US, because they control the airport,” Jaishankar said, adding that he had thanked the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian because France took back some Indians to Paris from Afghanistan.

The Taliban have said they will not interfere with the Afghan men's national cricket team, the country's biggest sporting success of recent years, or stop the expansion of the flagship Twenty20 league, an Afghan cricket official said. The fate of much more modest women's cricket programmes, however, remains unclear.

Commercial traffic across Afghanistan's border with Pakistan at the Spin Boldak/Chaman crossing picked up on Thursday, traders said, as the shock of the Taliban's lightning seizure of power began to ease and confidence returned. "Today, many trucks loaded with fresh fruit (from Afghanistan), including famous 'Sunder-Khani' grapes, were cleared at Customs House Chaman," a senior Custom Officer told Reuters.

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said that the Taliban appeared to be cooperating to allow Afghan nationals who have registered for US special immigrant visas to get to the airport gate. The Pentagon said the Taliban were not interfering with the airlift.

A round-the-clock special cell set up by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) following the Taliban takeover of Kabul has been focusing on keeping track of stranded Indians in Afghanistan, ascertaining assistance being sought and advising further course of action. According to rough estimate, the number of Indians stranded in Afghanistan could be around 400 and India has been looking at ways to evacuate them including by coordinating with the US and other friendly countries, people familiar with the development said.

The official said the group's commanders and senior members had also begun registering all the arms and equipment left in Afghanistan by US and other NATO forces.

The UNESCO Thursday called for the preservation of Afghanistan's cultural heritage in its diversity, and taking all precautions to protect the country's historic assets from "damage and looting." In a statement, the UNESCO also reminded of the "deliberate destruction" of the iconic Bamiyan Buddhas, a world heritage site in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, in 2001.

An Afghan delegation visiting Pakistan on Thursday called for the formation of an inclusive government through a power-sharing deal with all stakeholders in the war-torn country that has been taken over by the Taliban insurgents. “The new government will only succeed if all stakeholders are made part of it,” he said, adding that in case the Taliban failed to form an inclusive government the country could return to the post-1996 situation," a delegation member said.