Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has left the capital Kabul for Tajikistan, a senior Afghan Interior Ministry official said on Sunday.
The president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons”.
A representative of the Taliban, which entered the capital Kabul earlier on Sunday, said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts.
Taliban insurgents entered Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday and said they expected to take power within days, promising to moderate their earlier hardline Islamist rule even as foreign diplomats and many locals tried to leave.
American diplomats were evacuated from their embassy by chopper after a lightning advance by the militants, who were poised to run Afghanistan again following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Taliban fighters were reaching the capital “from all sides”, a senior Afghan interior ministry official told Reuters.
However, there were no reports of fighting.
The group was in talks with the Western-backed government for a peaceful surrender, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. “Taliban fighters are to be on standby on all entrances of Kabul until a peaceful and satisfactory transfer of power is agreed,” he said in a statement.
Ali Ahmad Jalali, a US-based academic and former Afghan interior minister, could be named head of an interim administration in Kabul, three diplomatic sources said, though it was unclear whether the Taliban had agreed.