News

Afghan ex-president Ashraf Ghani has fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).   He left his country in a hurry last weekend when the radical Islamist Taliban movement took the capital Kabul, ending the reconquest of the country. The UAE has welcomed Ghani and his family on humanitarian grounds, the Gulf State Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Ghani is in Abu Dhabi. Because the president fled, Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh claims he is now the legal leader of Afghanistan. As "legitimate interim president", he calls on the population to join the "resistance". In messages on Twitter, he claims that he has stayed in Afghanistan.

An Australian BBC reporter with Afghan roots received a call from a Taliban spokesman during a live broadcast on Sunday. In a half-hour conversation, Suhail Shaheen explained the plans of the radical Islamic movement.   Australian Yalda Hakim fled Afghanistan as a child and grew up in Sydney. She works as a news anchor for BBC in Australia. On Sunday, she reported on the situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters surrounded the city of Kabul. When the journalist received a call from Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen in the middle of a broadcast, she made sure viewers could follow the conversation by putting her phone on the loudspeaker and placing it next to a microphone. A few hours later, the Taliban fighters invaded the city and captured the presidential palace, from where t...