India tells its citizens to leave Afghanistan today in 'special flight'

A special flight is leaving from Mazar-e-Sharif to New Delhi. Any Indian nationals in and around Mazar-e-Sharif are requested to leave for India in the special flight scheduled to depart late today evening," the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif tweeted.

Currently, 1500 Indians are present in Afghanistan, according to government data and last month India pulled out 50 diploamts and security personnel from Kandahar as inense fighting broke out between the Afgahn forces and Taliban.

Taliban said Monday that they are targeting Mazar-i-Sharif after capturing Sheberghan to its west and Kunduz and Taloqan in the east.

Mazar-i-Sharif is the biggest city in the north of Afghanistan and a linchpin to the government's control over the area.

Taliban escalated its brutal offensive since May to reclaim control over Afghanistan as US-led NATO forces began retreating nearly 20 years after they arrived in the country.

According to the assessment of US intelligence, the civilian government in Afghanistan could fall in a matter of few months to the insurgent group after the withdrawal of the US forces.

The decision to pull out the US troops from Afghanistan has been long advocated by Biden, who believes that nothing more could be achieved by fighting the country and the United States has achieved its stated goal of defeating Al-Qaeda in the region following the September 11, 2001.

"Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us," Biden said last month, "that 'just one more year' of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution but a recipe for being there indefinitely," Biden was quoted as saying by AFP.