India making efforts to bring citizens from Afghanistan

New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) Indian intelligence and security establishments are making all efforts to bring its citizens from Afghanistan with Air Force transport aircraft already being mobilised and a few of them kept on standby.

Fearing attacks on the Indian community working with private companies in Afghanistan, the intelligence agencies have sent out alerts to them to be ready to be transported back to the country.

Unlike the United States Central Intelligence Agency which gathered the sense that Taliban will take months to capture Kabul, India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) was fully aware that "it was just a matter of days".

Also sensing the Afghan warlords would not be able to resist Taliban advances, unlike in the 1990s, Indian security establishments made all efforts to vacate the citizens from Afghanistan. Currently, Indian Embassies in Afghanistan are secured and all necessary precautions have been placed. "The rest of the Indians will be evacuated soon," said a source.

On Monday, complete unrest and panic gripped Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in Kabul. People have started fleeing the country fearing return to the brutal rule the Taliban imposed when it was last in power.

At the Kabul airport, five people were killed and three stowaways fell to their deaths from an airborne plane on Monday during an attempt to flee the country.

Thousands of citizens gathered at the Hamid Karzai International Airport to get into the US aircraft leaving from the airport.

Panicked Afghans were also running in front of the US aircraft in a bid to get cling to the wheels of the plane preparing to take off.

In the meantime, all commercial services have been suspended, with only military flights leaving the country.

The Taliban swept into the capital on Sunday after the Western-backed government collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing a stunning end to a two-decade campaign in which the US and its allies had tried to transform the country.