'Death to Pak' slogans raised in Afghanistan

Kabul: Chanting "death to Pakistan", Afghan protesters, including women, took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday, as they claimed that Pakistani jets conducted airstrikes in Panjshir province, according to a media report.

The Taliban on Monday said they have seized Panjshir, the last province not in their control, after their takeover of the US-backed Afghanistan government last month.

The Taliban members reportedly fired gunshots in the air to disperse the protestors but they were still agitating, the Khamma news agency of Afghanistan reported.

A number of men and women took to the streets of Kabul chanting slogans against Pakistan as they claimed the country's jets conducted airstrikes in Panjshir province, it said.

Chanting Death to Pakistan, Freedom, Allah Akbar and we do not want captivity among many other slogans, the protesters gathered at the gate of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul and asked its staff to leave Afghanistan, the report said.

The agitators said they do not want a puppet government in Afghanistan and asked for an inclusive government, it said.

The Taliban have detained Tolo News cameraperson Wahid Ahmadi who was filming a protest in Kabul. Lotfullah Najafizada, Head Tolo News TV, says, "Our colleague Waheed Ahmady, who has covered many frontlines over the years, is arrested by the Taliban in Kabul for filming Afghan women's protest. I call on the Taliban to release our colleague asap."

Another Afghan journalist reported that a reporter was detained and taken to unknown place by Taliban while he was reporting today's protest in Kabul.

The United States has evacuated four Americans from Afghanistan, a State Department official said on Monday, in the first US-facilitated overland evacuation since the pullout from the war-torn country, US media reported.

"Our embassy greeted the Americans as they crossed the border into the third country," CNN quoted the official as saying. The official confirmed that these are the first four Americans that "we've facilitated in this manner" since the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghans are in trouble as they are stranded at Spin Boldak intending to enter Pakistan after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Many Afghans with their families are stranded in the Spin Boldak district of southern Kandahar province for the past two weeks, reported Pajhwok Afghan News.

The families, mostly from the northern and eastern provinces of the country, want to leave the country after the regime change, but Pakistani forces are not allowing them to enter their country.