Sri Lanka says closely monitoring Afghan situation

The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry and the Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) are on alert for the facilitation of the return of a group of Sri Lankans employed in Kabul, officials here said. 

“There are 236 of them in Afghanistan right now, not all of them have asked to be evacuated,” Mangala Randeniya, the FEB spokesman, told reporters. 

“Both the foreign ministry and the FEB are closely monitoring the situation in Kabul in order to put in place necessary interventions”, Randeniya added. 

Sri Lanka embassy has a mission in Kabul which operates from a hotel. 

The Taliban on Sunday seized the last major city outside of Kabul held by the country's central government, cutting off the Afghan capital to the east. 

Taliban insurgents began moving towards Kabul following the overnight collapse of the two remaining cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad. 

US President Joe Biden in April announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11 this year, thus bringing to end the country's longest war, spanning across two decades. 

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, but following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the brutal regime of the militant group came to an end as they were removed from power by US-led forces in 2001. 

The group, however, has been on the offensive in recent months and is now on the brink of seizing power again. They entered direct talks with the US in 2018, and in February 2020. The two sides struck a peace deal in Doha that committed the US to withdrawal and the Taliban to prevent attacks on US forces.