Afghanistan news – live: Biden not ruling out sending more troops to Kabul, as airport death toll hits 20

President Joe Biden asks his defense chiefs “every single day” whether they need more troops or other resources to ensure safe evacuations of Americans and non-US citizens from Kabul airport.

This is according to his national security chief Jake Sullivan, who has not ruled out the possibility of sending more soldiers to Afghanistan.

John Bowden reports

A woman from the US state of Oklahoma has said that a group of 10 girls she had helped flee Afghanistan have been offered scholarships at “incredible” universities.

Allyson Reneau said that the teenage girls were able to leave Kabul on a commercial flight. They flew to Qatar on Tuesday after many failed attempts to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover.

The graduate of the NASA-sponsored International Space University, and mother-of-11, had first met the girls at a Humans to Mars summit in Washington DC in May 2019.

Ms Reneau told Insider: “They left everything behind to pursue their dreams and to be free and educated.

“They now seem to be safe, well, and happy.”

The Japanese government is considering plans to dispatch a military aircraft to Afghanistan to aid in evacuations.

Japanese nationals and some non-Japanese people that have been working for international organisations and Japan’s embassy in Kabul will be eligible for a place on the flight.

The government is expected to make a formal decision at a meeting of the National Security Council on Monday.  

A Self-Defence Forces (SDF) plane will leave for Afghanistan as soon as it is ready, the sources have said.

WUSF News’ Lisa Peakes reports the following:

Boris Johnson and Qatar’s ruling emir agreed during a conversation on Sunday that the international community should “fully fund the aid response” in Afghanistan, No 10 has said.

A Downing Street spokeswoman told reporters that the PM spoke to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani earlier and thanked his government “for its work in helping to facilitate ongoing evacuations from Kabul”.

“The leaders discussed co-operation on the diplomatic effort to stabilise the situation in Afghanistan and ensure any new government is inclusive and abides by its international obligations,” the spokeswoman said.

She added: “They agreed it was vital that the Afghan people continue to be supported with access to schools, hospitals and humanitarian assistance, and that the international community fully funds the aid response in Afghanistan and in the region.”

A propaganda photo released by the Taliban shows members of an elite commando unit recreating an iconic Second World War image of US Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.

The staged photo shows the special unit, called the Badri 313 Battalion, hoisting the Taliban flag while wearing head-to-toe US kit. It was part of a collection of promotional images and footage of the militants released this week, writes Helen Elfer.

Considered the Taliban’s top fighting unit, the group are reportedly highly trained and are now equipped with around $28bn worth of military weapons that America gave the Afghan forces between 2002 and 2017 is now in the hands of the militant group.

Read the full report:

Thousands of Afghan asylum seekers who have already reached the UK are stuck in a “nightmarish limbo” amid mounting calls to give them the right to stay in Britain permanently.

The Home Office has refused to say if it has halted the processing of more than 3,000 live asylum applications from Afghans in the UK, despite deleting all key guidance documents that are used to decide them a week ago.

Labour accused the government of endangering lives with its “chaotic handling” of Britain’s withdrawal from the country and subsequent Taliban takeover.

Our home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden has all the details:

Growing numbers of people in Kabul are struggling financially after their jobs had gone, banks remain closed, and food prices have sharply increased amid the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.

A former policeman, who is now in hiding, said he has lost the £200 a month salary he had supported himself, his wife and his four children with. Like many government employees, he has not been paid for the past two months.

He said: “I am totally lost, I don’t know what should I think about first, my safety and survival or feeding my kids and family.”

“I’m living in a rental apartment, I have not paid the owner for past three months,” he added.

He said he had tried to sell a few pieces of jewellery that belong to his wife but the gold market, like many other businesses, is closed.

Even before the Taliban swept into the city last Sunday, the value of the local afghani currency plunged against the dollar and pushed prices of basic foodstuffs ever higher.

Prices of staples like flour, oil and rice have risen by as much as 20 per cent in a few days and, with banks and money sending services such as Western Union still closed, many people have been unable to access their savings or cash from abroad.

Reporting by Reuters

Taliban political office spokesman Mohammed Naeem said that al-Qaeda is not present in Afghanistan and that the movement has no relationship with them.

In an interview with Saudi-owned Al Hadath TV, He added that talks are ongoing with the US and other countries regarding the situation in Afghanistan.