The Afghan government should engage with the Taliban to reach an inclusive settlement, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday as the militant group made rapid gains amid spiralling violence and worries of a refugee crisis.

The Taliban claimed control over two of Afghanistan's biggest cities on Thursday, according to media reports, as the United States and Britain said they would send thousands of troops to help evacuate their embassy staff.

The Afghanistan government has made a power-sharing proposal to the Taliban in exchange for a halt in the escalating violence in the country, media reports said yesterday, as the insurgents seized the strategic cities of Ghazni, just 150 kilometres from Kabul, and Herat, the country’s third-largest city. 

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused the United States of seeing his country as useful only in the context of the “mess” it is leaving behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.

The United States on Thursday urged U.S. citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately using available commercial flight options, a notice on the website of U.S. Embassy in Kabul said, amid a speedy Taliban advance across the country.

Amid rapid gains by the Taliban and after they took control of the 10th provincial capital of Afghanistan, the Ghani administration has offered them a share in power, Pakistani media ARY news reports quoting Afghan media.

The Taliban on Wednesday denied targeting and killing civilians during an offensive against Afghan government troops, calling for an independent investigation and seeking to assure Afghans that "no home or family shall face any threat from our side."

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan accused the United States of seeing his country as useful only in the context of the "mess" it is leaving behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.

Taliban fighters could isolate Afghanistan's capital in 30 days and possibly take it over in 90, a U.S. defence official told Reuters on Wednesday citing U.S. intelligence, as militants took control of an eighth provincial Afghan capital.

The Taliban seized another Afghan provincial capital yesterday -- the seventh in less than a week -- as tens of thousands of people fled their homes in the north for the relative safety of Kabul and other centres.

Myanmar’s junta had “nothing to do” with an alleged plot to attack the country’s ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun, who has defied the military and backed the pro-democracy movement, state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said yesterday.

1966 - A treaty to end three years of hostilities between Malaysia and Indonesia was signed in Jakarta.

India today asked all citizens living in and around Afghanistan’s third largest city Mazar-e-Sharif to return home by a special flight this evening, amidst reports that the Taliban are preparing to launch an attack to capture the city.

The United States said it was up to Afghan security forces to defend the country after Taliban militants captured a sixth provincial capital on Monday, along with border towns and trade routes.

Sri Lanka has begun mass cremations to clear a backlog of dead bodies from Covid-19 as cases surge across the island, officials said yesterday.

Nepal’s indigenous peoples have been subjected to human rights violations including torture and unlawful killings under the country’s conservation policies, Amnesty International and a local activist group said yesterday.

Rohingyas have no desire to be citizens of Bangladesh and their only goal is to go back to Myanmar, said Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights today in response to recent World Bank report that suggested refugee integration in 14 of the host countries.

Indian security agencies have apprehended 740 infiltrators along the India-Bangladesh border within the first six months of this year, Indian Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt told Rajya Sabha today.

Taliban fighters overran three provincial capitals including the strategic northeastern city of Kunduz on Sunday, local officials said, as the insurgents intensified pressure on the north and threatened further cities.

Myanmar protesters yesterday marked the anniversary of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that brought Aung San Suu Kyi to prominence, with flash mobs and marches of defiance against the ruling junta.