By Ahmed Mengli, Mushtaq Yusufzai, Rhea Mogul and Andrea Mitchell-NBC News
KABUL - Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday as Taliban fighters entered Kabul.
Ghani's departure, and the hasty evacuation of all US embassy personnel, followed a swift nationwide Taliban offensive that put
a shameful end to the US military presence
after two decades and billions of dollars. spent in there.
It appears that US officials
had not anticipated the rapid fall of Kabul
after President Joe Biden announced the total withdrawal of US forces, and were fighting both to protect their personnel and to explain defeat.
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of Afghanistan's National Reconciliation Council, confirmed reports that Ghani had left Afghanistan.
"He left Afghanistan at a difficult time, God hold him accountable
," Abdullah, a longtime rival of Ghani, said in an online video.
Ghani's team also confirmed the departure to CNBC.
The Taliban arrived in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on Sunday to negotiate a "peaceful surrender" of the city, according to a spokesman for the terrorist organization.
Three Afghan officials told The Associated Press news agency that the Taliban were in the Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman districts.
NBC News, the sister of Noticias Telemundo, could not independently verify this information.
[The unstoppable advance of the Taliban corners the last Americans in Afghanistan and forces the Pentagon to act]
US forces have evacuated US embassy personnel from the city, and NBC News witnessed helicopters entering and leaving the compound regularly.
"Until a peace agreement is reached, the security of the city and its residents is the responsibility of the government and they must guarantee it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
A Taliban spokesman told NBC News that those who entered were unarmed on instructions from higher-ups.
They order the destruction of sensitive material from the US embassy in Afghanistan so that it does not fall into the hands of the Taliban
Aug. 14, 202100: 29
Mujahid announced that the militant group's fighters "will be on standby at all entrances to Kabul until a peaceful and successful transfer of power is agreed."
The Taliban "do not want revenge" and the government and military workers "will be pardoned" and placed under the protection of the group, according to the spokesman.
[Biden announces that the US will leave Afghanistan on August 31 despite the risk of civil war and the resurgence of the Taliban]
In other parts of the city, US forces continued to evacuate US embassy personnel.
A U.S. Chinook helicopter flies over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, August 15, 2021.AP Photo / Rahmat Gul
"We have a small group of people who are leaving now as we speak, most of the staff are ready to leave. The embassy continues to function," a US official told Reuters news agency on Sunday.
In other parts of Kabul, thousands of civilians live in parks and open spaces.
Although the Afghan capital appears quiet this Sunday, some ATMs have stopped working.
[The war in Afghanistan "is an absolute failure", says a veteran before the new advance of the Taliban]
Hundreds of people also gathered in front of private banks, trying to withdraw their life savings.
US President Joe Biden announced on Saturday that he had sent 5,000 soldiers to the region, up from his original number of 3,000, but clarified that the country's presence in Afghanistan has to end.
"A year or five more of US military presence would have made no difference if the Afghan military is unable or unwilling to maintain its own country," argued Biden.
"And an endless American presence in the midst of another country's civilization is not acceptable to me."
The Taliban made advances across the country on Sunday, capturing Maidan Shar, the capital of Maidan Wardak province on Sunday.
The city is about 56 miles (90 kilometers) from Kabul, according to Afghan lawmaker Hamida Akbari and the Taliban.
[The US Army leaves the main air base in Afghanistan, after almost 20 years]
Insurgents also captured the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday morning, giving them control of one of the main landlocked roads into Afghanistan.
They also seized the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport as the only exit from Afghanistan that is still in government hands.
These came after Mazar-e-Sharif, the country's fourth-largest city, fell on Saturday, given insurgents' control over all of northern Afghanistan.
The Taliban have around 60,000 fighters, who would be joined by tens of thousands of like-minded militiamen and collaborators, according to an estimate by the West Point Center for Combating Terrorism.