The Taliban yesterday claimed total control over Afghanistan, saying they had won the key battle for the Panjshir Valley, the last remaining holdout of resistance against their rule.

The Taliban claimed victory on Monday over opposition forces in the Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul, declaring that it completed the Islamist group's takeover of Afghanistan and promising to announce a new government soon.

Senior Taliban officials met in Kabul on Sunday with the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, who promised to maintain assistance for the Afghan people, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said.

About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck in Afghanistan for days awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave, an organizer told Reuters, blaming the delay on the US State Department.

Four Pakistani paramilitary guards were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in the

The Taliban said on Sunday their forces had fought their way into the provincial capital of the Panjshir valley, their latest claim of progress in fighting against opposition forces holding out in the area north of Kabul.

Angelina Jolie has expressed concern about the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Four Pakistani paramilitary guards were killed Sunday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in the southwestern city of Quetta, police said.

Fighters of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which opposes the rule of the Taliban (outlawed in Russia), have killed about 600 Taliban combatants in the northern Afghan region of Panjshir on Saturday, Front spokesman Fahim Dashty wrote on Twitter.

Taliban and opposition forces battled on Saturday to control the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, the last Afghan province holding out against the militant group, as the top US general warned of a "civil war" if the Islamists failed to consolidate power.

Fresh fighting was reported between the Taliban and resistance forces in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley yesterday, as the hardline Islamists delayed finalising a new government that will set the tone for their rule.

The Brunei diplomat appointed by a Southeast Asian regional bloc as its special envoy to Myanmar said he is still negotiating

At least 17 people were killed in celebratory gunfire in Kabul, news agencies said on Saturday, after Taliban sources said their fighters had seized control of Panjshir, the last province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group.

The United Nations will convene an international aid conference in Geneva on Sept. 13 to help avert what U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a "looming humanitarian catastrophe".

Safe in Europe after escaping from Kabul, an Afghan woman judge describes how she was hunted by men she had once jailed, now freed by the Taliban fighters who took over the country.

Google has temporarily locked down an unspecified number of Afghan government email accounts, according to a person familiar with the matter, as fears grow over the digital paper trail left by former officials and their international partners.

The U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and others held at a camp in Uzbekistan already feared being sent back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. So it was little comfort when an Uzbek guard unsympathetically quipped the other day: "You can't stay here forever."

Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will lead a new Afghan government set to be announced soon, sources in the group said yesterday, as its fighters battled forces loyal to the vanquished republic in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

Myanmar ethnic rebels have killed at least 23 government soldiers in days of fighting near the Chinese border, a spokesman for the group said yesterday, in the latest clashes likely to worry powerful neighbour Beijing.

Sri Lanka yesterday imposed price controls on key foods as the government stepped up the use of emergency powers to counter shortages.