In Kabul, US embassy staff were ordered to begin shredding and burning sensitive material, as the first American troops started arriving to secure the airport.
United States and Britain have deployed thousands of troops to evacuate their citizens from the Afghanistan capital as the Taliban seized more major cities on Friday and raced to take full control of the country by inching closer to Kabul.
As Afghanistan’s second and third largest cities- Kandahar and Herat- have fallen and are now controlled by the Taliban, Kabul has effectively become the besieged, last stand for government forces who have offered little or no resistance elsewhere.
The capital of Logar province, just 50kms (30 miles) from Kabul, was also captured by the Mujahideen, with a local lawmaker saying the insurgents were in complete control of Pul-e-Alam city.
Officials and residents in Kandahar, earlier on Friday, told news agency AFP that government forces had withdrawn en masse to a military facility outside the southern city.
“Kandahar is completely conquered. The Mujahideen reached Martyrs’ Square,” a Taliban spokesman tweeted, referring to a city landmark.
The Islamist hardliners, hours later, said they had also taken control of Lashkar Gah, the capital of neighboring Helmand province.
A security source confirmed the fall of the city, telling AFP that the Afghan military and government officials had evacuated Lashkar Gah after striking a local ceasefire deal with the militants.
In Kabul, US embassy staff were ordered to begin shredding and burning sensitive material, as the first American troops from a planned 3,000-strong re-deployment started arriving to secure the airport and oversee evacuations.
A host of European countries — including Britain, Germany, Denmark and Spain — all announced the withdrawal of personnel from their respective embassies on Friday.
The Pentagon said 3,000 US troops would be deployed to Kabul within the next 24 to 48 hours, underscoring they would not be used to launch attacks against the Taliban.
Diplomatic and official sources told AFP that NATO was also set to hold an urgent meeting later on Friday about the deteriorating situation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply disturbed” by accounts of poor treatment of women in areas seized by the Taliban, who imposed an ultra-austere brand of Islam on Afghanistan during their 1996-2001 rule.
“It is particularly horrifying and heartbreaking to see reports of the hard-won rights of Afghan girls and women being ripped away,” Guterres said.
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