Czech President Milos Zeman said Tuesday he expected Afghanistan to turn into a terror hub under the Taliban leadership, criticising NATO for its withdrawal from the conflict-plagued country.

"The Taliban will create a terrorist centre on the Afghan territory," the outspoken leader told the Parlamentni Listy news site.

"This will lead to the renewal of terror attacks practically all over the world," said the 76-year-old.

The Taliban would have no problems with financing because it could live off selling opium as "Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in the world", he added.

Zeman, who under the terms of the constitution is the Czech army's commander-in-chief, also attacked NATO for its decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

"I already criticised the withdrawal at the NATO summit in London a year ago and now at the NATO summit in Brussels," Zeman said.

"I was looking (Donald) Trump and (Joe) Biden in the eyes, telling them it was cowardice.

"I think that by leaving Afghanistan, the Americans have lost the prestige of a global leader and NATO itself has raised doubts about the legitimacy of its existence."

A NATO member since 1999, the Czech Republic had its soldiers in Afghanistan until their withdrawal in June this year.

Zeman, who has a soft spot for Russia and China, said his country should now reconsider its pledge to raise spending on defence to two percent of gross domestic product, as required by NATO.

"If NATO failed here, we should reassess our spending on defence and put more stress on national defence," said Zeman.

Zeman has repeatedly stood up against immigration from Muslim countries, and he once likened the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Adolf Hitler.

Berlin calls on NATO to learn lessons from Afghanistan
Berlin (AFP) Aug 17, 2021 - Germany's defence minister on Tuesday urged NATO to learn lessons from its Afghanistan mission -- slammed as a "debacle" by critics, as allies struggled to pull off a difficult evacuation operation from the capital, Kabul.

Speaking ahead of an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told German broadcaster ZDF "there's a lot that we have to work on within NATO".

"The question for us will be to what extent are we willing to carry the consequences for this, and to what extent we are prepared to take measures that up to this point we have left to the Americans," Kramp-Karrenbauer said.

NATO ambassadors are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, where Western allied forces are seeking to accelerate their evacuation operations.

In an illustration of the messy situation on the ground, German officials revealed that a German military plane left Kabul carrying just seven evacuees, while hundreds waited on the ground at the airport in the Afghan capital Kabul.

"Due to the chaotic situation at the airport and the regular exchange of fire at the access point yesterday, further German citizens and people to be evacuated could not be given access to the airport without the protection of the Bundeswehr [German army]," a spokesman for the German foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The retrieval of people located in the civilian part of the airport was not made possible by partners responsible for security at the airport."

German special forces travelling into Kabul on the same flight were at the same time deployed with the task of securing future evacuations.

The return to power of the Taliban follows the withdrawal from the beginning of May of 9,500 allied soldiers still present in the country, including 2,500 American troops.

Armin Laschet, the leader of Angela Merkel's ruling party and candidate to be the next chancellor of Germany, described the Afghanistan mission as "the biggest debacle" in NATO's history.

A number of other German notables expressed their dismay at Washington's decision to pull out, which precipitated the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan.

Merkel herself alluded to a decision made "due to domestic politics" in the United States.

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Weapon seizures 'massive boon' for Taliban as cities fall
Kabul (AFP) Aug 14, 2021
The United States spent billions supplying the Afghan military with the tools to defeat the Taliban, but the rapid capitulation of the armed forces means that weaponry is now fuelling the insurgents' astonishing battlefield successes. "We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools - let me emphasise: all the tools," US President Joe Biden said when defending his decision to withdraw American forces and leave the fight to the locals. But Afghan defence forces have shown little appetite for ... read more