TERMEZ /Uzbekistan/, August 16. /TASS/. Uzbekistan’s Air Forces have forced to land 46 Afghan aircraft over the past two days, the press service of the Uzbek prosecutor general’s office said on Monday.
"The planes were forced to land at Termez international airport. The planes were carrying as many as 585 armed servicemen who were trying to illegally cross Uzbekistan’s airspace," said Khayet Shamsutdinov, a spokesman for the prosecutor general’s office.
According to the spokesman, in an attempt to compel airspace violators to land, a MiG-29 fighter jet of the Uzbek Air Forces collided with an Embrayer-314 aircraft flying from Afghanistan. The planes crashed but their pilots safely ejected themselves from their aircraft.
Apart from that, 158 Afghan nationals have been detained by Uzbek border guards over two days in Uzbekistan’s Termez district.
After the United States announced the end of an armed operation in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its troops, the Taliban (a radical movement outlawed in Russia) launched a large-scale offensive on the government army and by August 15 entered Kabul after meeting no resistance. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he was resigning to avoid bloodshed and fled the country. Western nations are evacuating their citizens and embassy employees.
The Taliban claims the war is over but experts think that refugee flows from Afghanistan would continue for a long time.