Security sources: No clashes take place between Taliban, Iran border guards

Security sources informed with the matter have dismissed rumors that there have been clashes between the Taliban militants and Iranian border guards, saying there exists no problem at Iran’s borders with neighboring Afghanistan.

The security sources, who talked to Tasnim news agency on the condition of anonymity on Sunday, said that no hostilities or clashes have broken out between the Taliban and Iranian border guards at the Islam Qala border crossing.

However, they said one of the members of the Taliban had mistakenly entered the Iranian soil and was handed back to the Taliban after being informed about the country’s border laws.

They also asked people not to trust false and unconfirmed reports about the latest developments, reiterating that there is no problem along the borders, either at the Islam Qala border crossing or anywhere else.

Earlier, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the Iran-Afghanistan border areas enjoy full security in the hands of Iranian armed forces.

“People should not worry at all, because the scope of our observations has gone beyond the borders and we are monitoring and controlling all the developments in the neighboring country,” Major General Hossein Salami told reporters on Friday.

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Iranian diplomats safe in Kabul

Meanwhile, Iran's official IRNA news agency also quoted its unnamed sources as saying on Sunday that Iranian diplomats are safe in the country’s embassy in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and at other diplomatic premises belonging to Iran, adding that no Taliban militant has entered Iranian missions in the war-hit country.

Citing the sources, the news agency said all Iranian diplomats and staff at the country’s mission in Mazar-i-Sharif have been transferred to the embassy in Kabul.

“Despite the overcrowding in front of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Kabul, Iranian diplomats have been in good conditions so far,” it added.

The report came after unconfirmed videos circulated online, claiming that Taliban forces had entered Iran’s Consulate General in Mazar-i-Sharif.

However, IRNA said the person speaking with the staff at the Iranian mission is a trusted local who came by to check on the local staff of the mission.

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Taliban enter Kabul ‘from all sides’

On Sunday, Taliban militants entered Kabul after taking over vast areas of the war-torn country, 20 years after they were toppled by the US military in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

American diplomats were evacuated from their embassy by chopper following the Taliban’s rapid advance, which has stunned the world.

According to Reuters, a senior Afghan interior ministry official said Taliban militants were reaching the capital “from all sides,” after Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban are to be “on standby on all entrances of Kabul until a peaceful and satisfactory transfer of power is agreed.”

Another Taliban spokesman said the group would protect the rights of women, as well as freedoms for media workers and diplomats.

“We assure the people, particularly in the city of Kabul, that their properties, their lives are safe,” Suhail Shaheen told the BBC, saying a transfer of power was expected in days.

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Government vows ‘peaceful transfer of power’

The Afghan government has already signaled that there were negotiations underway to avoid bloodshed in Kabul, and to hand power to the Taliban peacefully.

“The Afghan people should not worry... there will be no attack on the city and there will be a peaceful transfer of power to the transitional government,” Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal said in a speech.

Earlier on Sunday, the Taliban militants captured the eastern city of Jalalabad, gaining control over one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan.

They also took over the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport the only way out of Afghanistan still in government hands.

“The governor has surrendered to the Taliban,” a Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters, adding, “Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives.”

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