According to the Afghan Interior Ministry, the radical Islamic Taliban have penetrated into the Afghan capital Kabul.
The Interior Ministry announced that the Islamists were advancing into the city from all sides.
The government announced a peaceful transfer of power.
"There will be no attack on the city," said Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirsakwal in a recorded address.
Accordingly, a transitional government should be formed.
President Ashraf Ghani's chief of staff, Matin Bek, also wrote on the Twitter online service: “Don't panic! Kabul is safe. ”On Saturday, President Ashraf Ghani announced in a speech to the nation that the Afghan armed forces would be“ remobilized ”. At the same time, however, he also spoke of a possible "political solution" to the conflict. Ghani's statement was already seen as a willingness to surrender. The Afghan Presidential Office called on the residents to be calm and prudent.
The Bundeswehr plans to fly German citizens and local workers out of the beleaguered Kabul on Monday.
For this purpose, the air force wants to send several transport machines, paratroopers should secure the rescue operation, it was said on Sunday from defense circles in Berlin.
The Taliban militia was already on the outskirts of Kabul on Sunday.
"We will not risk our people falling into the hands of the Taliban," said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) of the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
Tashkent is to become a hub for German evacuation
The German government was apparently surprised by the speed of the Taliban's advance on Kabul. On Thursday, Maas announced that it would send charter planes to Kabul by the end of August in order to get local workers out of the country. However, the advance of the militia to the gates of Kabul forced the federal government to act in greater haste. On Sunday, evacuation plans were being worked on “under high pressure”, according to government circles. According to information from the newspaper Bild, “the first Bundeswehr machine is due to start in the direction of Kabul on Sunday.
According to the information, the plans provide for a hub for stopovers of the transport machines from Kabul to be set up in Tashkent, the capital of neighboring Uzbekistan. From there the passengers were to be brought to Germany by charter aircraft. The federal government did not comment on the number of those to be flown out. According to information from the news magazine Der Spiegel, the roughly 20 employees of the German embassy in Kabul and the federal police officers who are there to be observed are to be flown out. There are also development workers and around 80 other Germans who are still in the country.
In addition, around 300 local Afghan workers who worked for Germany in Afghanistan, along with their families, are to be flown out. Foreign Minister Maas told Bild on Sunday that he gave the highest priority to the safe departure of German embassy staff from Afghanistan: "We are prepared for all scenarios." In principle, the approval of the Bundestag is required for any armed German armed forces abroad. According to the parliamentary law, the government can also obtain this mandate retrospectively if it involves “deployments in imminent danger”, “which do not tolerate delay”.