Afghanistan crisis live updates: 5,800 US troops now at Kabul airport to help with evacuations

Netherlands said his country is working closely with Germany and Britain on evacuations, but getting evacuees to Kabul airport is an uncertain process due to Taliban checkpoints, adding that there are more than 700 Dutch nationals in Afghanistan who still remain to be evacuated.

NATO's priority is to get people out of Kabul and keep the airport running, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday as the alliance's foreign ministers met for a virtual crisis meeting to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

Biden is set to meet with his national security team about the evacuations, and to speak from the White House Friday afternoon. In addition to criticism from some lawmakers who say the U.S. failed to adequately plan for the Taliban's swift takeover, U.S. diplomats have voiced dissent.

"I am well and alive and after a couple of unforgettable nights, I have reached Doha, Qatar and am awaiting my eventual flight back home to Istanbul," Sayeed told her 1.3 million Instagram followers. Sayeed, 36, who had recently starred as a judge on a singing competition show on Afghan television, told reporters she left via US cargo jet, reported New York Post.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato on Friday said that the country is not considering to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government in Afghanistan. He said that Japan will make the necessary decision based on national interests and in cooperation with other countries involved, including the US. Earlier, Japan has evacuated staff and nationals from its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban took control over the national capital.

In a Friday statement, the White House said multiple C-17 flights from Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport evacuated nearly 350 US citizens, as well as family members of US citizens, asylum applicants and their families, and vulnerable Afghans. "We have evacuated approximately 9,000 people since August 14. Since the end of July, we have evacuated approximately 14,000 people," it said.

An Afghan official familiar with talks with the Taliban says the group does not plan to make any decisions or announcements about the upcoming government until after the Aug. 31 U.S. withdrawal date passes. Taliban lead negotiator Anas Haqqani has told ex-government interlocuters that the insurgent movement has a deal with the U.S. "to do nothing'' until after the final withdrawal date passes, he said.

The Panjshir Valley north of Afghanistan's capital Kabul is the final major centre of resistance to the Taliban, but analysts say the fighters gathered there will struggle if the Islamist hardliners launch a full-scale attack. Right now, it is the only part of the country confirmed to be beyond Taliban control. "The resistance for the moment is just verbal because the Taliban have not yet tried to enter the Panjshir," said Afghan specialist Gilles Dorronsoro from Sorbonne University in Paris.

Taliban fighters tortured and killed members of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan after recently overrunning their village, Amnesty International said. The rights group said that its researchers spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine Hazara men in the village of Mundarakht on July 4-6. It said six of the men were shot, and three were tortured to death.

Germany will send two light helicopters to Kabul to evacuate Germans at risk or situated in remote regions, a defence ministry's spokesperson in Berlin said on Friday. German special forces use this kind of light helicopters and are specially trained to evacuate citizens in crisis situations.

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday said his country is determined to play a "positive role" in Afghanistan as he appealed to the Taliban insurgents and former rulers of the war-ravaged country to formulate an all-inclusive political government after mutual consultations. Qureshi said that nobody is ready to face bloodshed in Afghanistan and people are looking for peace and stability in the country.

There are reports that local Taliban leaders are inspecting consulates of various countries located in Kandahar, Herat, Mazhar-e-Sharif and several other cities.

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.