Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban co-founder, on Saturday arrived in Kabul to discuss formation of new government with politicians and senior members of the group to end the power vacuum.
“Mullah Baradar is in Kabul to meet with jihadi leaders and politicians to constitute a comprehensive government,” a senior Taliban official told media. Baradar was arrested in Pakistan in 2010. He was released in in 2018 after the United States decided to hold dialogues with the Taliban. Baradar has served as the head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar and on 29 February 2020, he signed an agreement with the United States in Doha to withdraw foreign troops.
After his return, the militant group announced that this time their style of governing will be “different.”
UK ready to work with Taliban
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that Britain will work with the Taliban if needed after their control over Kabul. He said, “I want to reassure the public of our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution to Afghanistan will continue to work with the Taliban if necessary,” Johnson told the media.
Johnson said the situation was “slightly improving” at Kabul airport, where thousands of people were trying to board US airlines to leave the country. The British government said it has evacuated 1,615 people since Saturday, including 399 British citizens, 320 embassy staff and 402 Afghans.
Taliban website goes offline
The Afghan Taliban’s websites through which the group delivered messages in five languages in Afghanistan and around the world suddenly went offline. According to media reports, it was not immediately clear why the sites – operates in Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, English and Dari – suddenly went offline. The site is protected by the US-based network Cloud Flair which has not yet responds to a request for comment.
The popular encrypted messaging service WhatsApp also announced to have removed a number of Taliban groups. , Rita Katz, director of Site Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism. The reports of the removal of WhatsApp groups came after the US-backed Afghan government collapsed on 15 August.