One Afghan evacuated to France now in custody, minister says

PARIS (Reuters) - Five Afghans who were evacuated from Kabul to France were placed under surveillance due to suspected links to the Taliban and one of them is in custody for failing to comply with a stay at home order, the French interior minister said on Tuesday.

Western countries are working to evacuate their citizens and others by an Aug. 31 deadline, a date previously agreed with the Taliban for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Some countries have asked for more time.

"More than a thousand Afghans, some hundred French nationals have been taken from Kabul to Abu Dhabi and from Abu Dhabi to Paris," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told Franceinfo radio.

"Among those 1,000 Afghans, one was supposedly - and I do say supposedly - linked with the Taliban. But he helped a lot, the French army, French citizens, journalists ... We put him and his friends under surveillance on their arrival in France to clear up any doubt," he said.

"One of those five persons left the place we asked them to stay in, he was taken into custody yesterday, which shows the security services are closely monitoring those individuals", he added.

The British government said on Monday an individual on a "no-fly" list had been flown from Afghanistan to Britain on a British military plane as part of evacuation efforts but said that person was no longer considered a risk.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Edmund Blair)