'Don't be fooled. There is nothing more moderate about the revived Taliban government'

The United States, Blinken said, is committed to looking at everything done from day one through the present and draw lessons from it.

The last meeting of the 2+2 was held in New Delhi and the next meeting is to be hosted by the US in Washington, DC.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla has met top Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman, and held substantive discussions with them on the strategic bilateral ties and regional and global issues like the current situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized Kabul.

"I have not seen anything to corroborate that report," Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters at a news conference on Thursday when asked about the reported allegations by former Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani that Pakistan had sent between 10,000 to 15,000 of its men along with the Taliban to capture Kabul and Afghanistan.

Haley said there is a need to closely watch China as it is making a move to take over the Bagram air force base that was controlled by the United States for nearly two decades.

There's no rush to recognition from the United States or any country we have spoken with around the world. It will be very dependent on their behaviour and whether they deliver on what the expectations are of the global community, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

"After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago," US President Joe Biden.

The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.

The United States has begun a new diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as the US withdrew its last troops from the country ending the 20-year war in the South Asian nation.

Blinkin said the US will engage with the Taliban not on the basis of what a Taliban-led government says, but what it does to live up to its commitments.

'No other military in the world could accomplish what we and our allies and partners did in such a short span of time. That is a testament not only to our forces' capabilities and courage but also to our relationships and the capabilities of our allies and partners,' Austin said in a statement at the conclusion of the American mission in Afghanistan.

"Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended," he said, thanking armed forces for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled -- in the early hours of Tuesday (August 31) -- with no further loss of American lives.

"The situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous, and the threat of terrorist attacks on the airport remains high. Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours," US President Joe Biden said.

An ISIS-Khorasan planner was killed in a "counterterrorism" operation conducted by US military forces in the Nangahar province, a day after a terror attack in Kabul killed scores of people including 13 US troops.

The United States intelligence community has failed to reach any firm conclusion on the exact origin of COVID-19 and is split on whether it leaked from a lab in China or emerged in nature, even though it does not believe the virus was developed as a biological weapon, according to results of a detailed review ordered by President Joe Biden.

The US has said it will go ahead with its plan to conclude its Afghanistan mission by August 31, even as the evacuation effort, which is now in its "retrograde period", is facing an "ongoing and acute threat" from ISIS-K.

The president said the ISIS-K was behind the gruesome attack at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and at a hotel nearby.

The US has held IS-K, the regional affiliate of the Islamic State terror outfit, responsible for Thursday's Kabul airport attack in which 13 American soldiers were killed and 18 others injured.

The terrorist attack was carried out by ISIS gunmen, General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie, Commander of the United States Central Command, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference on Thursday, hours after the terrorists opened gunfire at American soldiers standing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.