Vajpayee is understood to have extended India's continued support to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
The country's interim leader has got 55.3% of the votes and is much ahead of his nearest rival Yunus Qanuni after 94.4% of the votes polled were counted.
Mohammad Yunus Qanooni says he has evidence indicating large scale fraud in the Afghan elections.
US President George W Bush said during his first visit to Afghanistan Wednesday that he was confident Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would be brought to justice.
Delving into implications of the latest developments in Afghanistan, Russian Ambassador Nikolay Kudashev said that there is a danger of the possible spread of terror into Russian territory as well as Kashmir, noting that India and Russia will continue to work together to counter any threat of terrorism.
'I have never been afraid of death or threats, and I have never wanted to give up and silence my voice.'
With the United States planning troops withdrawal by next year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is believed to have pressed India on Friday for stepping up military aid including lethal and non-lethal weapons amid indications that the government was not averse to the Afghan leader's demand which could be met depending on the country's capacity.
Ahmad Wali Karzai left his house moments before the explosion, said to be an accident.
'I am not bound by the niceties of international politics where people decide issues based on their national interest and give it a moralistic name,'says Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.
In a US-India Joint Leaders' Statement issued after the first in-person bilateral meeting between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on Friday, the two leaders underscored the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan.
For two decades the US paid in blood and blood money for dependence on Pakistan to carry out one president's boast. Now, having been defeated by its proxies, another president will go into Rawalpindi's embrace to satisfy his constituents, predicts Shekhar Gupta.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The ineptness of successive American presidents, from Bush the Younger to Joe Biden the Old, combined with the cluelessness that Americans demonstrate in foreign lands, contrasts with the Chinese leadership's seemingly singular focus on the accumulation of wealth and power, asserts T N Ninan.
"But the completion by August 31 depends on the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those who were transporting out and no disruptions to our operations," US President Joe Biden said.
The Taliban has its backers, notably Pakistan and China. Their purpose is to have a monstrous entity near India's northern borders to keep democratic, secular India off-guard, observes Amulya Ganguli.
In fact, the Taliban apparently collects about 10 per cent as cultivation tax from opium farmers and 15 per cent as heroin tax from laboratories and smugglers that smuggle narcotics into Pakistan. This, by itself, is a revenue stream estimated at USD 250-300 million.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
Pakistan would want to take full advantage of the situation to direct Taliban trained terrorists into the Kashmir Valley, alert Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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.
Notwithstanding President Hamid Karzai's reluctance to sign the bilateral security agreement, the United States has said that though it is open to signing of the pact later in the year, the longer it takes the more challenging it will be to execute any mission post 2014 in Afghanistan.
A closure of the Indian mission in Kabul will be a Himalayan blunder at this historic juncture when the wheels of diplomacy and politics are set to accelerate in Afghanistan, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
'India could help in Afghanistan, but if it does too much, it will stoke Pakistan's paranoia and risk making the situation worse,' Michael O'Hanlon, one of America's leading experts on international security, tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
A number of documents indicate that Pakistan International Airline has put embargo on Afghan citizens who have travelled to India.
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
The US spent $1.5 million a day since 2001 fighting the opium war in Afghanistan. After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban's $200-million-a-year opium trade, the US military quietly ended the campaign when the Trump administration officials engaged in direct peace talks with the Taliban, notes Atanu Biswas.
The Taliban had promised an 'inclusive' government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the cabinet.
The United States, Blinken said, is committed to looking at everything done from day one through the present and draw lessons from it.
'Washington is well aware that the Haqqani group was responsible for terrorist attacks on the Indian diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan.' 'But today US self-interest dictates that Sirajuddin Haqqani's mainstreaming in Afghan political life and a potential elevation eventually to a leadership role at the national level is useful and necessary, since he can deliver peace,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Like China, India too should connect the dots and move ahead with a long-term perspective in Afghanistan, advises Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'I am committed to my country if there is respect for democracy and human rights. If not possible then I will prefer to stay in India or any other western country'
India on Thursday strongly condemned the Taliban attack on a guesthouse in the Afghan capital that killed 14 people, including four Indians.
Security will be a consideration, as would protocol, but given Modi's penchant for the unconventional, it should not come as a surprise if he indeed decides to attend the ceremony in Kabul, says Ramesh Ramachandran.
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