The insurgents said in a statement that they were in negotiations with the Afghan government and would not take the capital by force.
The Taliban’s relentless, rapid advance across Afghanistan brought them on Sunday to the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, the last major city controlled by the government. As it became clear that the Taliban were at the gates of the capital, thousands of Afghans who had sought refuge there after fleeing the insurgents’ brutal military offensive watched with growing alarm as the local police seemed to fade from their usual checkpoints. Wais Omari,20, a street vendor in the city, reflected those concerns. “The situation is not good,” he said. “If it gets worse, I will hide in my home.” The Taliban, in a statement, said that they were in negotiations with the government and would not take the capital by force. “The Islamic Emirate instructs all its forces to stand at the gates of Kabul, not to try to enter the city,” a spokesman said, using the name by which the insurgents refer to themselves. The Afghan government had no immediate public response. Afghan news media reported that President Ashraf Ghani had left the country on Sunday afternoon. The United States military stepped up its evacuation of American diplomatic and civilian staff. A core group of American diplomats who had planned to remain at the embassy in Kabul were being moved to a diplomatic facility at the international airport, where they would stay for an unspecified amount of time, according to a senior United States official. On the civilian side of the airport, a long line of people waited outside the check-in gate, unsure if the flights they had booked out of the country would arrive.
