World

BUDAPEST  — Pope Francis met on Sunday with anti-migration Hungarian premier Viktor Orban before calling on pilgrims to be “open” and “considerate” at a big open-air mass in Budapest.

The head of 1.3 billion Catholics — in Hungary to close the International Eucharistic Congress — met Orban, accompanied by his deputy and the president, behind closed doors in Budapest’s grand Fine Arts Museum.

On the one hand, the Hungarian prime minister is a self-styled defender of “Christian Europe” from migration. On the other, Pope Francis urges help for the marginalised and those of all religions fleeing war and poverty.

“The cross urges us to keep our roots firm, but without defensiveness; to draw from the wellsprings, opening ourselves to the thirst of the men and women of our time. My wish is that you be like that: Grounded and open, rooted and considerate,” the Pope told pilgrims when closing the 52nd congress at Heroes’ Square in Budapest.

‘Cordial’ meeting 

The pope’s approach to meet those who don’t share his worldview — eminently Christian according to the Pontiff — has often been met with incomprehension among the faithful, particularly within the ranks of traditionalist Catholics.

“I asked Pope Francis not to let Christian Hungary perish,” Orban posted on his Facebook page following a photo of the two shaking hands.

The Vatican described the meeting as “cordial”.

“Among the various topics discussed were the role of the church in the country, the commitment to the protection of the environment, the protection and promotion of the family,” its statement said.

Over the past few years, there has been no love lost between Orban supporters in Hungary and the leader of the Catholic world.

Pro-Orban media and political figures have launched barbs at the Pontiff calling him “anti-Christian” for his pro-refugee sentiments, and the “Soros Pope”, a reference to the Hungarian-born liberal US billionaire George Soros, a right-wing bete-noire.

Eyebrows have also been raised over the Pontiff’s whirlwind visit.

His seven-hour-long stay in Hungary will be followed immediately by an official visit to smaller neighbour Slovakia of more than two days.

‘Work together’ 

In his first address during his visit — to Christian and Jewish leaders after meeting Orban as well as the country’s bishops — Pope Francis warned of “the threat of antisemitism still lurking in Europe and elsewhere”.

“This is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn. And the best way to defuse it is to work together, positively and to promote fraternity,” the Pontiff said seated.

Hungary’s 100,000-strong Jewish community is one the largest in Central Europe.

The 84-year-old Pontiff’s 34th foreign trip comes two months after a colon operation that required a general anaesthetic and a ten-day convalescence in hospital.

“Sorry if I spoke sitting down. I’m not 15,” the Pope said.

The Argentinian regularly reminds “old Europe” of its past, built on waves of new arrivals.

In contrast, Orban’s signature crusade against migration has included border fences and detention camps for asylum-seekers.

Orban’s supporters point instead to state-funded aid agency “Hungary Helps” which works to rebuild churches and schools in war-torn Syria, and sends doctors to Africa.

Orban’s critics, however, accuse him of using Christianity as a shield to deflect criticism and a sword to attack opponents while targeting vulnerable minorities like migrants.

Days before the Pope’s arrival posters appeared on the streets of the Hungarian capital — where the city council is controlled by the anti-Orban opposition — reading “Budapest welcomes the Holy Father” and showing his quotes including pleas for solidarity and tolerance towards minorities.

‘Not here for politics’ 

Orban — who is of Calvinist Protestant background — and his wife — attended the Pope’s mass at the Heroes’ Square.

Around 75,000 people had registered to attend the event, with screens and loudspeakers placed the length of a main boulevard near the square to allow others to follow the ceremony.

“We are not here for any politics, but to see and hear the pope, the head of the Church. We can hardly wait to see him. It is wonderful that he is visiting Budapest,” Eva Mandoki, 82, from Eger, some 110 kilometres east of the capital, told AFP.

It is the first papal trip to Hungary since Pope John Paul II in 1996.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA — When Americans honour the nearly 3,000 killed in the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the 20th anniversary on Saturday, a grim shadow will lurk in the background, that of attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has yet to be tried and convicted for the heinous crime.

Mohammed, who boasted to interrogators of designing and managing the 9/11 plot sits in a cell in a high-security camp on the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He has been here for 15 years, as the attempt to hold him accountable in a US military war court plods on in fits and starts, stuck on whether his being tortured by the CIA renders his boastful confessions inadmissible.

He remains, after the now-dead Osama Bin Laden, the most reviled figure tied to the 9/11 attacks.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated the attacks, calls Mohammed a "wild-eyed killer" whose "demented" plotting set him apart from others in Al Qaeda.

Imagination and managerial skills 

Most people know him by the photograph taken of his capture, his thick body clothed in a nightshirt, wearing a thick moustache and disheveled hair.

Appearing in the Guantanamo military courtroom for the first time in over 18 months this week, Mohammed was thinner, with a long, greying red-dyed beard, wearing more traditional Pakistani dress.

He walked in easily, chatting with a fellow defendant in the death-penalty case, and knelt on a small carpet between the tables for prayers.

The official 9/11 Commission report and a Senate report about the CIA's torture programme describe the 56-year-old "KSM" as a capable and bloodthirsty lieutenant of Bin Laden.

A Pakistani citizen, he was raised in Kuwait. He learned English well enough to study mechanical engineering at a US university.

By the time he graduated in 1986, he was already a Muslim hard-liner.

Working for the Qatar government in the early 1990s, Mohammed appears to have been inspired to action by a nephew, Ramzi Yousef, who undertook the bombing of New York's World Trade Centre in 1993. After that, the two joined hands with a plan to blow up US-bound jetliners flying from the Philippines.

Yousef was arrested in Pakistan after the first attempt failed, while Mohammed lay low in Qatar before relocating to Pakistan in 1996 to evade a US search.

It was then that he first proposed the 9/11 attacks to bin Laden.

"Highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist safehouse, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude, and managerial skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes," the 9/11 Commission report said.

Waterboarding

After the attacks, Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in March 2003 and taken by the CIA to a black site in Poland for interrogation.

Over four weeks, he was subjected to waterboarding 183 times, as well as to sleep deprivation, repeated slamming against a wall, "rectal rehydration", and other harsh techniques.

The Senate report described him as deeply resistant, frustrating interrogators with lies and fabrications, while giving up relatively general information.

But following his transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006, he proudly confessed to the military court and compared himself to George Washington, fighting to escape oppression.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," he said.

He also claimed responsibility for 30 other operations, including Al Qaeda-linked bombings in Bali and Kenya, and said he personally murdered the kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded in Pakistan in 2002.

The 9/11 report called his plotting "theatre, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star — the superterrorist".

But the length of the proceedings may have worn him down.

In 2017, Mohammed's lawyers were in discussions to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. That deal never developed, reportedly because of opposition high in the government.

'Legendary figure' 

In the court this week, Mohammed appeared confident and unapologetic, animatedly talking to his attorneys, defying the judge's requirement to wear a mask, and waving to two journalists in the glassed-in viewing gallery at the back of the court.

Attorneys say he almost certainly knows of the Taliban recapturing control of Afghanistan, hailed as a great victory by Al Qaeda.

"He is definitely considered as a legendary figure and one of the masterminds behind 9/11," Tore Hamming, a Danish specialist on militant Islam, told AFP.

"That said, it is not like KSM is often discussed, but occasionally he features in written and visual productions," he added.

NEW YORK — America marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Saturday with solemn ceremonies given added poignancy by the recent chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and return to power of the Taliban.

At the 9/11 memorial in New York, relatives wiped away tears, their voices breaking as they read out the names of the almost 3,000 people killed in Al Qaeda attacks.

"We love you and we miss you," many of them said as somber violin music played at the official ceremony, attended by dignitaries including President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

At the Ground Zero site where 2,753 people died, some of whom jumped to their deaths from the collapsing towers, the service started shortly after 8:30 am (1230 GMT) under tight security, with Lower Manhattan effectively locked down.

The first of six moments of silence were marked at 8:46am, with a bell ringing to symbolize the time the first hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

At 9:03am, attendees stood still again to mark the moment the South Tower was struck. At 9:37am, it was the Pentagon, where the hijacked airliner killed 184 people in the plane and on the ground.

At 9:59, the moment the South Tower fell. At 10:03am, they remembered the fourth plane to crash in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought the hijackers. At 10:28am, the North Tower falling.

Mourners clutched photos of their loved ones, their pain still raw despite a whole generation having grown up since the morning of September 11.

“As we carry these 20 years forward, I find continuing appreciation for all of those who rose to be more than ordinary people,” said Mike Low, whose daughter was a flight attendant on the first plane.

Bruce Springsteen sang his song “I’ll See You in My Dreams”, and after nightfall twin light beams will be projected into the New York sky.

Smaller ceremonies took place across the country, including outside fire stations throughout New York in remembrance of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives to save others, while a brief moment of contemplation took place in Times Square.

Heart-wrenching commemorations also took place at the Pentagon and Shanksville.

‘Unity’ 

In the last 20 years, Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden has been hunted down and killed and towering new sky scraper has risen over Manhattan, replacing the Twin Towers, dubbed the “Freedom Tower”.

But 9/11 is never far away.

In Guantanamo Bay, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men continue to await trial, nine years after charges were filed.

And even the full story of how the attack came to happen remains secret. Only last week did Biden order the release of classified documents from the FBI investigation over the next six months.

The memorials come with US troops finally gone from Afghanistan, but national discord over the exit has overshadowed what was supposed to be a pivotal day in Biden’s nearly eight-month-old presidency.

Less than two weeks ago, the last US soldiers flew from Kabul airport, ending the so-called “forever war”.

But the Taliban who once sheltered bin Laden are back ruling Afghanistan, the mighty US military humiliated.

In a video posted on the eve of the anniversary, Biden urged Americans to show unity, “our greatest strength”.

“To me, that’s the central lesson of September 11th. It’s that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength,” Biden said in a six-minute message from the White House.

But former president Donald Trump shattered that unity, releasing a video message slamming the “inept administration” of Biden for its “incompetence” over the Afghan withdrawal.

World leaders struck a more cordial tone, sending messages of solidarity to the United States, and saying that the attackers had failed to destroy Western values.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II said the victims and survivors were in her prayers as she paid tribute to the “resilience and determination of the communities who joined together to rebuild”.

MOSCOW — As Arctic ice cover recedes with climate change, Russia is pinning its hopes for supremacy in the warming region on a fleet of giant nuclear-powered icebreakers.

Moscow sees the development of the Arctic as a historic mission and already has huge projects to exploit its natural resources.

Its next big plan is for year-round use of the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane through Arctic waters Russia hopes could rival the Suez Canal.

Here are some key facts about Russia's plans for the Arctic:

Historic ambitions 

As an icebreaker called the "50 Years of Victory" left the port of Murmansk for the North Pole this summer, its captain told an AFP journalist on board that Russia has a special role to play in the Arctic.

"A third of our territory lies above the Arctic Circle. Our ancestors have long mastered frozen waters. We are continuing this successfully," Dmitry Lobusov said.

President Vladimir Putin has made the development of the Arctic a strategic priority and state companies such as Gazprom Neft, Norilsk Nickel and Rosneft already have major projects in the Arctic to extract oil, gas and minerals.

"The Arctic region has enormous potential," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said earlier this month.

"In terms of resources, we're talking about 15 billion tonnes of oil and 100 trillion cubic metres of gas. Enough for tens if not hundreds of years," he said.

 Suez alternative 

The Northern Sea Route links the Pacific to the Atlantic through Russian Arctic waters.

It is not currently navigable year-round without the help of icebreakers, though in summer some specialised classes of ships can pass through.

With the ice cover receding, Moscow is aiming for year-round navigation by 2030.

The route between east Asia and Europe is considerably shorter than through the Suez Canal.

When a huge container ship blocked the busy Suez shipping lane in March, Moscow touted the Northern Sea passage as a "viable alternative".

Russia hopes to boost traffic through the route from nearly 33 million tonnes of cargo in 2020 to 80 million tonnes by 2024 and 160 million by 2035 -- still a long way off from the billion tonnes that pass through the Suez Canal every year.

Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom, which is developing the route and icebreaker fleet, says 735 billion rubles ($10 billion/8.5 billion euros) will be invested by 2024, including 274 billion rubles in state money.

Growing fleet 

Rosatom, which already has a fleet of five icebreakers and a container ship, is building four more nuclear-powered vessels within the next five years.

Each ship costs more than $400 million (340 million euros) to build. Construction requires more than 1,000 people and takes five to seven years.

The ships are designed to resist extreme weather conditions, towering 52 metres high with a length of 173 metres and able to smash through ice up to 2.8 metres thick.

No other country operates a comparable fleet, with the United States and China mostly using diesel-electric icebreakers.

Environmental worries 

Environmental groups have slammed the race for hydrocarbons and the increased presence of nuclear reactors in the Arctic -- an already fragile ecosystem dramatically affected by climate change.

Greenpeace has said that "the incident-ridden history of Russian nuclear icebreakers and submarines" should cause alarm.

"Of course, risks arise when implementing projects in such a fragile ecosystem," Rosatom told AFP in a statement in response to environmental concerns.

But, it said, the "economic opportunities for both the local population and global economy" of the Northern Sea Route exceed environmental risks.

KABUL — Two Afghan journalists were left with ugly welts and bruises after being beaten and detained for hours by Taliban enforcers for covering a protest in the Afghan capital.

The pair were picked up at a demonstration on Wednesday and taken to a police station in the capital, where they say they were punched and beaten with batons, electrical cables and whips after being accused of organising the protest.

"One of the Taliban put his foot on my head, crushed my face against the concrete. They kicked me in the head... I thought they were going to kill me," photographer Nematullah Naqdi told AFP.

Despite promises of a more inclusive regime, the Taliban have moved to snuff out mushrooming opposition against their rule.

On Wednesday night they declared demonstrations illegal unless permission had been granted by the justice ministry.

Naqdi and his colleague Taqi Daryabi, a reporter, who both work for Etilaat Roz (Information Daily) had been assigned to cover a small protest in front of a police station in Kabul by women demanding the right to work and education.

Naqdi said he was accosted by a Taliban fighter as soon as he started taking pictures.

"They told me 'You cannot film'," he said.

"They arrested all those who were filming and took their phones," he told AFP.

Naqdi said the Taliban tried to grab his camera, but he managed to hand it to someone in the crowd.

Three Taliban fighters caught him, however, and took him to the police station where the beatings started.

Taliban officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from AFP.

'They see us as enemies' 

"The Taliban started insulting me, kicking me," said Naqdi, adding that he was accused of being the organiser of the rally.

He asked why he was being beaten, only to be told: "You are lucky you weren't beheaded".

Naqdi was eventually taken to a crowded cell where he found his colleague, Daryabi, who had also been arrested and beaten.

"We were in so much pain that we couldn't move," Daryabi said.

A few hours later the pair were released without explanation -- sent on their way with a string of insults.

"They see us as enemies," Taqi said.

The Taliban have claimed they will uphold press freedoms -- in line with unspecified Islamic principles -- although journalists are increasingly being harassed covering protests across the country.

In recent days, dozens of journalists have reported being beaten, detained or prevented from covering the protests, a show of resistance unthinkable under the Taliban's last regime in the 1990s.

Most are Afghan journalists, whom the Taliban harass more than the foreign media.

The protests are proving an early test for the Taliban, who after taking power on August 15 promised a more tolerant rule and to work for "the peace and prosperity of the country".

Zaki Daryabi, chief of the Etilaat Roz newspaper, said the Taliban's words rang hollow.

"This official speech is totally different from the reality that can be observed on the ground," he told AFP.

KABUL — A new Taliban interim government drawn exclusively from loyalist ranks formally began work Wednesday, with established hardliners in all key posts and no women — despite previous promises to form an inclusive administration for all Afghans.

As they transition from militant force to governing power, the Taliban are already facing opposition to their rule, with scattered protests — many with women at the forefront, breaking out in cities across the country.

A small rally in the capital Kabul on Wednesday was quickly dispersed by armed Taliban security, while Afghan media reported a protest in the northeastern city of Faizabad was also broken up.

Hundreds protested on Tuesday, both in the capital and in the city of Herat, where two people at the demonstration site were shot dead.

The announcement of a government Tuesday night was a key step in the Taliban's consolidation of power over Afghanistan, following a stunning military victory that saw them oust the US-backed administration on August 15.

Notorious for their brutal and oppressive rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had promised a more inclusive government this time.

However, all the top positions were handed to key leaders from the movement and the Haqqani network, the most violent faction of the Taliban known for devastating attacks.

Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, a senior minister during the Taliban's reign in the 1990s, was appointed interim prime minister, the group's chief spokesman said at a press conference in Kabul.

Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban founder and late supreme leader Mullah Omar, was named defence minister, while the position of interior minister was given to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the feared Haqqani network.

Co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar, who oversaw the signing of the US withdrawal agreement in 2020, was appointed deputy prime minister.

None of the government appointees were women.

“We will try to take people from other parts of the country,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, adding that it was an interim government.

Hibatullah Akhundzada, the secretive supreme leader of the Taliban, released a statement saying that the new government would “work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and sharia law”.

The Taliban had made repeated pledges in recent days to rule with greater moderation than they did in their last stint in power.

“The new Taliban, same as the old Taliban,” tweeted Bill Roggio, managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal.

“It’s not at all inclusive, and that’s no surprise whatsoever,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.

As Afghans anxiously wait to see what kind of Taliban rule awaits the country, Zabihullah also announced the reinstatement of the feared Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The ministry had under the Taliban’s former rule been responsible for arresting and punishing people for failing to implement the movement’s restrictive interpretation of sharia law.

‘Actions, not words’

Even as the Taliban consolidate power, they face the monumental task of ruling Afghanistan, which is wracked with economic woes and security challenges, including from Daesh group’s local chapter.

The Taliban spokesman on Tuesday warned the public against taking to the streets, adding that journalists should not cover any demonstrations.

The group, which executed people in stadiums and chopped the hands of thieves in the 1990s, has said it would not stand for any resistance against its rule.

Beijing said Wednesday it welcomed the end of “three weeks of anarchy”, adding it “attaches great importance” to the announcement of an interim government.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China hoped the Taliban would “pursue moderate and steady domestic and foreign policies, resolutely crack down on all kinds of terrorist forces, and get along well with all countries, especially neighbouring countries”.

Washington, which has said it is in “no rush” to recognise the new government, expressed concern about the administration’s members but said it would judge it by its actions.

“We note the announced list of names consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no women. We also are concerned by the affiliations and track records of some of the individuals,” a State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The European Union said the “caretaker” government failed to honour vows from the new rulers to include different groups.

Qatar, the central intermediary between the Taliban and the international community in recent years, also said the Taliban should be judged on their actions and said they had demonstrated “pragmatism” of late.

“Let’s seize the opportunities there,” Assistant Foreign Minister Lolwah Al-l-Khater told AFP in an exclusive interview, but she stopped short of announcing formal recognition of the government.

Former president Ashraf Ghani, meanwhile, who fled the country on August 15 as the Taliban entered Kabul, apologised on Wednesday to the Afghan people for how his rule ended.

In a statement on Twitter, Ghani said he left at the urging of the palace security in order to avoid the risk of bloody street fighting, and again denied stealing millions from the treasury.

“I apologise to the Afghan people that I could not make it end differently,” he said.

GENEVA — The vaccine-sharing facility Covax said Wednesday it should be able to provide COVID jabs to no more than 20 per cent of people in poorer countries this year, far fewer than anticipated.

Covax acknowledged that it now expects to access just 1.425 billion vaccine doses this year, far short of its goal of delivering two billion doses by year-end.

That milestone was now expected to be reached only in the first quarter of 2022, according to Covax backers the World Health Organisation, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

A full 1.2 billion of this year's doses would go to Covax's so-called Advance Market Commitment (AMC) programme aimed at providing the world's 92 poorest countries with free access to COVID vaccines, with donors covering the cost.

"This is enough to protect 20 per cent of the population, or 40 per cent of all adults, in all 92 AMC economies with the exception of India," the Covax statement said.

The Covax partners have regularly raged against the drastic imbalance in access to COVID-19 vaccines between rich and poor nations.

"The global picture of access to COVID-19 vaccines is unacceptable," the statement said, with only a fifth of people in low and middle-income countries having now received a first vaccine dose, compared to 80 per cent in wealthy countries.

So far, Covax has only distributed some 243 million vaccine doses to 139 poorer countries, according to Unicef, which handles logistics for the vaccine-sharing facility.

But a major scale-up is looming.

"Most of the countries in the world have now received Covax doses," Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley told reporters, stressing though that "this is just the start".

"We expect to have a further 1.1 billion doses available for delivery between now and the end of the year."

The Serum Institute of India plant, producing AstraZeneca doses, was supposed to be the early backbone of Covax’s supply chain — but India restricted exports to combat its own devastating coronavirus surge.

Following those delivery problems, Covax is increasingly reliant on donated doses from wealthy countries which have bought more batches than they need.

“Today, Covax’s ability to protect the most vulnerable people in the world continues to be hampered by export bans, the prioritisation of bilateral deals by manufacturers and countries, ongoing challenges in scaling up production by some key producers, and delays in filing for regulatory approval,” the statement said.

KABUL — The Taliban announced the top members of their government on Tuesday, in a move that will cement their power over Afghanistan and set the tone of their new rule just days after a chaotic US troop pullout.

The Islamist hardliners, who swept into Kabul on August 15 following a lightning offensive that decimated the former Afghan army, had pledged a more "inclusive" brand of rule than in their first stint in power in 1996-2001.

They have nonetheless made it clear that they will stamp out any insurgency, and on Tuesday they fired shots into the air to disperse hundreds of people who had gathered at several rallies in Kabul in a sign of defiance against a movement remembered for their brutal and oppressive rule.

On Tuesday evening, chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a press conference that the new government would be an interim one, and that Taliban veteran Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund would serve as its new acting prime minister.

He had served as deputy foreign minister under the Taliban's old regime, and is on a UN blacklist.

Mujahid also said that Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar will be the deputy leader. Previously he served as the head of his movement's political office, overseeing the signing in 2020 of the US withdrawal agreement.

Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban founder and late supreme leader Mullah Omar, was named defence minister, while the position of interior minister was given to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the feared Haqqani network who also doubled up as a Taliban deputy leader.

"The Cabinet is not complete, it is just acting," Mujahid said.

"We will try to take people from other parts of the country."

'We are tired' 

Following their 20-year insurgency, the Taliban now face the colossal task of ruling Afghanistan, which is wracked with economic woes and security challenges, including from the Daesh terror group's local chapter.

Scattered protests in recent days have indicated that some Afghans are sceptical of the Taliban's capacity to translate their promise of a more moderate rule into reality.

"Afghan women want their country to be free. They want their country to be rebuilt. We are tired," protester Sarah Fahim told AFP at one rally on Tuesday, where more than 70 people, mostly women, had gathered.

Videos posted on social media of a separate rally showed more than a hundred people marching through the streets under the watchful eye of armed Taliban members.

Scattered demonstrations have also been held in smaller cities in recent days, including in Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, where women have demanded to be part of a new government.

'Go away' 

General Mobin, a Taliban official in charge of security in the capital, told AFP he had been called to the scene by Taliban guards who said that "women were creating a disruption".

"These protesters are gathered based only on the conspiracy of foreign intelligence," he claimed.

An Afghan journalist covering the demonstration told AFP his press ID and camera were confiscated by the Taliban.

"I was kicked and told to go away," he said.

Later, the Kabul-based Afghan Independent Journalists Association said 14 journalists, Afghan and foreign — were detained briefly during the protests before being released.

Images shared online showed reporters with cuts and bruises to their hands and knees.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had reiterated a pledge to allow Afghans to freely depart Afghanistan.

The Taliban told the United States that "they will let people with travel documents freely depart", Blinken said at a news conference in Doha, where he and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met their Qatari opposite numbers.

US President Joe Biden has faced mounting pressure amid reports that several hundred people, including Americans, have been prevented for a week from flying out of an airport in northern Afghanistan.

'Hit hard' 

Tuesday's demonstrations come after the Taliban claimed total control over Afghanistan a day earlier, saying they had won the key battle for the Panjshir Valley.

Following their lightning-fast victory in mid-August over the former Afghan government's security forces and the withdrawal of US troops after 20 years of war, the Taliban turned to fighting the resistance forces defending the mountainous region.

In a press conference on Monday, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned against any further attempts to rise up against their rule.

"Anyone who tries to start an insurgency will be hit hard. We will not allow another," he said.