Afghanistan disaster: Protests erupt in opposition to Taliban, Al-Qaida-linked group in Syria lauds insurgents; and extra

Afghan protesters defied the Taliban for a second day on Thursday, waving their nationwide flag in scattered demonstrations that had been met with renewed violence by the insurgents.
According to the information company Associated Press (AP), a procession of automobiles and other people close to Kabul’s airport carried lengthy black, crimson, and inexperienced banners in honor of the Afghan flag — a banner that’s changing into a logo of defiance in opposition to the Taliban’s flag.

In Nangarhar province, a video posted on-line confirmed one demonstrator with a gunshot wound bleeding, as onlookers tried to hold him away.
In Khost province, Taliban authorities instituted a 24-hour curfew after violently breaking apart one other protest, the AP mentioned, citing info obtained by journalists monitoring from overseas. The insurgents didn’t instantly acknowledge the demonstration or the curfew.
Taliban fighters show their flag whereas on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021. (AP)
Similarly, no less than two folks had been killed on Thursday within the Afghan metropolis of Asadabad after Taliban fighters fired on folks waving the nationwide flag at an Independence Day rally, witnesses instructed Al Jazeera. At least eight folks had been wounded within the violence.

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The killings come a day after three folks had been killed in an identical protest in Jalalabad.
Al-Qaida-linked group in Syria praises Taliban
An al-Qaida-linked group in Syria is congratulating the folks of Afghanistan for the “dear victory” achieved by the Taliban, AP reported.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or the Levant Liberation Committee, in contrast the Taliban’s management of a lot of Afghanistan with the early Muslim conquests.
An Afghan takes a selfie with Taliban fighters on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021. (AP)
The group, also referred to as HTS, is essentially the most highly effective faction in rebel-held components of northwest Syria. Over the previous months, it has been engaged on bettering its picture by distancing itself from extremist ideology.
Some of the founding members of the group — which was once often called the Nusra Front — embody Arab commanders who had been near Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Many of them had been killed in U.S. drone assaults in Syria over the previous years.

The Taliban should resolve whether or not it desires to be acknowledged by the worldwide neighborhood, US President Joe Biden mentioned in an ABC interview aired on Thursday, including that he didn’t suppose the group had modified its basic beliefs. Asked if he thought the Taliban had modified, Biden instructed ABC News, “No.”

“I think they’re going through a sort of existential crisis about: Do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government? I’m not sure they do,” he mentioned, including that the group appeared extra dedicated to its beliefs.
US President Joe Biden. (File)
But, he added, the Taliban additionally needed to grapple with whether or not it may present for Afghans.
“They also care about whether they have food to eat, whether they have an income that… can run an economy, they care about whether or not they can hold together the society that they in fact say they care so much about,” Biden mentioned within the interview, taped on Wednesday. “I’m not counting on any of that.”
Taliban marks Afghan independence day
Earlier within the day, the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan’s Independence Day, declaring it had overwhelmed “the arrogant of power of the world” within the United States.
Afghanistan’s Independence Day commemorates the 1919 treaty which ended British rule within the central Asian nation, AP reported.
People wait to cross into Afghanistan on the Friendship Gate crossing level on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border city of Chaman, Pakistan August 19, 2021. (Reuters)
“Fortunately, today we are celebrating the anniversary of independence from Britain,” the Taliban was quoted as saying by AP. “We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan.”
Afghans plead to US for quicker evacuation
Meanwhile, Afghans together with educated younger ladies, former US navy translators, and others who really feel most in danger from the Taliban appealed to the Joe Biden administration to get them on evacuation flights.
People display in assist of Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the nation, at Syntagma sq. in Athens, Greece, on August 19, 2021. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden and his high officers had mentioned that the US was working to hurry up the evacuation, however made no guarantees how lengthy it could final or what number of determined folks it could fly to security.
According to AP, tons of of Afghans who lacked any papers or guarantees of flights additionally congregated on the airport, because the United States struggled to deliver order to the persevering with chaos on the Kabul airport.
Taliban won’t on the present time be allowed to entry loans or different sources: IMF
The International Monetary Fund says that the brand new Taliban authorities in Afghanistan won’t on the present time be allowed to entry loans or different sources from the 190-nation lending organisation.
In an announcement Wednesday, the IMF mentioned it could be guided by the views of the worldwide neighborhood.

As is all the time the case, the IMF is guided by the views of the int’l neighborhood. There is at present a scarcity of readability inside the int’l neighborhood concerning recognition of a authorities in Afghanistan, as a consequence of which the nation can’t entry SDRs or different IMF sources.
— Gerry Rice (@IMFSpokesperson) August 18, 2021
The assertion mentioned, “There is currently a lack of clarity within the international community regarding recognition of a government in Afghanistan, as a consequence of which the country cannot access SDRs or other IMF resources.”

SDRs are particular drawing rights that function a reserve that IMF member international locations can faucet into to fulfill cost obligations.