Kabul
US says 1,500 Americans may still await Kabul evacuation
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan, a figure that suggests the U.S. may accomplish its highest priority for the Kabul airlift — rescuing U.S. citizens — ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline despite growing concerns of terror threats targeting the airport.
Untold thousands of at-risk Afghans, however, still are struggling to get into the Kabul airport, while many thousands of other Afghans already have been flown to safety in 12 days of round-the-clock flights.
On Wednesday, several of the Americans working phones and pulling strings to get out former Afghan colleagues, women’s advocates, journalists and other vulnerable Afghans said they have seen little concrete U.S. action so far to get those Afghans past Taliban checkpoints and through U.S-controlled airport gates to promised evacuation flights.
“It’s 100% up to the Afghans to take these risks and try to fight their way out,” said Sunil Varghese, policy director with the International Refugee Assistance Project.
Read: Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
Blinken, echoing Biden’s earlier declarations during the now 12-day-old evacuation, emphasized at a State Department briefing that “ evacuating Americans is our top priority. ”
He added, “We’re also committed to getting out as many Afghans at-risk as we can before the 31st,” when Biden plans to pull out the last of thousands of American troops.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security alert warning American citizens away from three specific airport gates, but gave no further explanation. Senior U.S. officials said the warning was related to ongoing and specific threats involving the Islamic State and potential vehicle bombs, which have set U.S. officials on edge in the final days of the American drawdown. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing military operations.
Blinken said the State Department estimates there were about 6,000 Americans wanting to leave Afghanistan when the airlift began Aug. 14, as the Taliban took the capital after a stunning military conquest. About 4,500 Americans have been evacuated so far, Blinken said, and among the rest “some are understandably very scared.”
The 6,000 figure is the first firm estimate by the State Department of how many Americans were seeking to get out. U.S. officials early in the evacuation estimated as many as 15,000, including dual citizens, lived in Afghanistan. The figure does not include U.S. Green Card holders.
About 500 Americans have been contacted with instructions on when and how to get to the chaotic Kabul airport to catch evacuation flights.
In addition, 1,000 or perhaps fewer are being contacted to determine whether they still want to leave. Blinken said some of these may already have left the country, some may want to remain and some may not actually be American citizens.
“We are providing opportunity,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of those Afghans, who include dual Afghan-American citizens. “We are finding ways to get them to the airport and evacuate them, but it is also their personal decision on whether they want to depart.”
On a lighter note, the U.S. military said an Afghan baby girl born on a C-17 military aircraft during the massive evacuation will carry that experience with her. Her parents named her after the plane’s call sign: Reach.
She was born Saturday, and members of the 86th Medical Group helped in her birth aboard the plane that had taken the family from Kabul to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Two other babies whose parents were evacuating from Afghanistan have been born over the past week at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the U.S. military hospital in Germany.
In Washington on Wednesday, Blinken emphasized that the U.S. and other governments plan to continue assisting Afghans and Americans who want to leave after next Tuesday, the deadline for Biden’s planned end to the evacuation and the two-decade U.S. military role in Afghanistan. “That effort will continue, every day, past Aug. 31,” he said.
Read:Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
Biden has cited what he U.S. says are rising security threats to U.S. forces, including from an affiliate of the Islamic State terror group, for his determination to stick with Tuesday’s withdrawal deadline. Germany has said Western officials are particularly concerned that suicide bombers may slip into the crowds surrounding the airport.
The U.S. Embassy has already been evacuated; staff are operating from the Kabul airport and the last are to leave by Tuesday.
Biden said this week he had asked his national security team for contingency plans in case he decides to extend the deadline. Taliban leaders who took control of Afghanistan this month say they will not tolerate any extensions to the Tuesday deadline. But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted that “people with legal documents” will still be able to fly out via commercial flights after Tuesday.
U.S. troops are anchoring a multinational evacuation from the airport. The White House says the airlift overall has flown out 82,300 Afghans, Americans and others on a mix of U.S., international and private flights.
The withdrawal comes under a 2020 deal negotiated by President Donald Trump with the Taliban.
Refugee groups are describing a different picture than the Biden administration is when it comes to many Afghans: a disorganized, barely-there U.S. evacuation effort that leaves the most desperate to risk beatings and death at Taliban checkpoints. Some Afghans are reported being turned away from the Kabul airport by American forces controlling the gates, despite having approval for flights.
U.S. military and diplomatic officials appear to still be compiling lists of eligible Afghans but have yet to disclose how many may be evacuated — and how — private Americans and American organizations said.
“We still have 1,200 Afghans with visas that are outside the airport and haven’t got in,” said James Miervaldis with No One Left Behind, one of dozens of veterans groups working to get out Afghans who worked with the U.S. military during America’s nearly 20 years of combat in the country.. “We’re waiting to hear from the US. government and haven’t heard yet.”
Marina LeGree of Ascend, a U.S.-based nonprofit that worked to develop fitness and leadership in Afghan girls and young women, described getting calls from U.S. officials telling the group’s interns and staffers to go to the airport for evacuation flights, only to have them turned away by American forces keeping gates closed against the throngs outside.
One Afghan intern who went to the airport with her family saw a person killed in front of them, and a female colleague was burned by a caustic agent fired at the crowd, LeGree said.
“It’s heartbreaking to see my government fail so badly,” said LeGree, the group’s American director, who is in Italy but in close contact with those in Kabul.
Read: Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
U.S.-based organizations, speaking on background to discuss sensitive matters, cite accounts from witnesses on the ground as saying some American citizens, and family members of Afghans with green cards, still were having trouble pushing and talking their way into the Kabul airport for flights.
Kirby said the U.S. military will preserve as much airlift capacity at the airport as possible in the coming days, ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. The military will “continue to evacuate needed populations all the way to the end,” he said. But he added that in the final days and hours there will have to be a balance in getting out U.S. troops and their equipment as well as evacuees.
Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the deputy director of regional operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had conducted another helicopter mission beyond the perimeter of the airport to pick up people seeking to evacuate.
The number of U.S. troops at the airport has dropped by about 400, to 5,400, but the final withdrawal has not begun, Kirby said Wednesday.
What's happening with Afghanistan evacuations?
Since the Taliban seized the Afghan capital on August 14, more than 82,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan in one of the largest US airlifts in history.
While the pace has picked up in recent days, it is still a chaotic scramble as people seek to escape. Afghans trying to reach the Kabul airport face a gauntlet of danger, and there are far more who want to leave than will be able to do so.
Read: India ready to deal with any terrorism flowing out of Afghanistan: Top General
Those who do make it out will face the many challenges of resettlement, either in the US or somewhere else. And time is running out. President Joe Biden set an August 31 deadline to complete the US-led evacuation.
How did we get here?
President Donald Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020 as part of an effort to end what he called the "endless wars" in the Middle East. He agreed to a May 1 deadline to have all troops out of the country.
Biden, who says he no longer wants to risk American lives in a civil war among Afghans, kept with the withdrawal plan but extended the deadline to September. The Taliban quickly seized control of most of the country as the US withdrew air support to the Afghan military. Afghans, fearing retribution and the harsh rule of the Taliban, rushed to the airport in hopes of getting out of the country.
Who is getting flown out of the country?
The 70,000 evacuees include more than 4,000 American citizens and family members, as well as Afghans who have obtained a limited number of special immigrant visas, which are for people who have worked for the US or NATO as interpreters or in some other capacity.
The US is also evacuating Afghans, along with their immediate families, who have applied for the visas but have not yet received them, and people who face particular danger from the Taliban. That includes people who worked for the government, members of civil society, journalists and human rights activists.
Where are they going?
American citizens and people who already have legal US residency, including those who have been approved for the special immigrant visa, can proceed to the US after a stopover, typically in Qatar or another Gulf nation.
Afghans who have applied for but not yet received the special visa, or who are seeking to enter the US as refugees, must first go to a "transit hub" in Europe or Asia for security vetting by US intelligence and law enforcement authorities, according to the White House.
Read: 1 million Afghan children could die from malnutrition: Unicef
After they are screened, they can be flown to the US and housed at military bases in Virginia, New Jersey, Texas and Wisconsin until their applications are completed and they can be resettled. The White House says everyone will be tested for Covid-19 upon arrival in the US. It is unclear how long it will take to process people at military bases.
In addition, at least 13 countries, including Uganda, Rwanda, Costa Rica and Albania have agreed to temporarily house Afghan refugees until they can be resettled.
Has anything like this happened before?
The scale and speed of this airlift are unprecedented, but the US has a history of taking in refugees from overseas conflicts. The US airlifted about 7,000 people with the fall of Saigon in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War and ultimately took in more than 100,000 refugees from Southeast Asia. In 1996, the US evacuated about 5,000 Kurds and other Iraqi minorities from northern Iraq after then-president Saddam Hussein regained control of the region.
In 1999, about 20,000 victims of Yugoslavian "ethnic cleansing" against Albanians in the province of Kosovo were brought to the US as refugees and temporarily housed for processing in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The US has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees since 1980.
How do Afghans get settled into their new lives in the US?
Nine nonprofit resettlement agencies, including the International Rescue Committee and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, oversee a network of affiliates that work to help refugees. Once they are placed in their new cities, they typically get food and housing assistance for the first 90 days but are expected to become self-sufficient. They are greeted at the airport and taken to their new home, generally an apartment.
The nonprofit groups – which operate with a combination of government grants and private donations – help them find a job and get acclimated. "People are intimidated and nervous and all of those emotions. But they're also, I think, excited. People come in just feeling safe again," said Mark Hagar, the Dallas-area director for Refugee Services of Texas. Refugees are expected to reimburse the government for their flight to the US.
Shouldn't this process have started earlier?
Members of Congress and others have long complained about the length of time and the bureaucratic hurdles required for former interpreters and others who worked for the US to get visas. The process slowed further under Trump, whose administration also cut the number of refugees allowed into the US, and it came to a virtual halt with the outbreak of Covid-19.
Read:When the music stops: Afghan ‘happy place’ falls silent
This summer, as the US withdrawal approached, the US held off on a mass evacuation at the request of the Afghan government, which feared it would trigger a panic that would make it even harder to hold off the Taliban, according to Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser. But he said even starting earlier would not have avoided the chaos at the airport.
"This operation is complex. It is dangerous. It is fraught with challenges – operational, logistical, human. And it's produced searing images of pain and desperation," he told reporters this week. "But no operation like this, no evacuation from a capital that has fallen in a civil war, could unfold without those images."
Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
U.S. President Joe Biden declared Tuesday he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline for completing a risky airlift of Americans, endangered Afghans and others seeking to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The decision defies allied leaders who want to give the evacuation more time and opens Biden to criticism that he caved to Taliban deadline demands.
“Every day we’re on the ground is another day that we know ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both us and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said at the White House, referring to the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, which is known for staging suicide attacks on civilians.
He said the Taliban are cooperating and security is holding despite a number of violent incidents. “But it’s a tenuous situation,” he said, adding, “We run a serious risk of it breaking down as time goes on.”
The United States in recent days has ramped up its airlift amid new reports of rights abuses that fuel concern about the fate of thousands of people who fear retribution from the Taliban and are trying to flee the country. The Pentagon said 21,600 people had been evacuated in the 24 hours that ended Tuesday morning, and Biden said an additional 12,000 had been flown out in the 12 hours that followed. Those include flights operated by the U.S. military as well as other charter flights.
Read: Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
Biden said he had asked the Pentagon and State Department for evacuation contingency plans that would adjust the timeline for full withdrawal should that become necessary.
Pentagon officials expressed confidence the airlift, which started on Aug. 14, can get all Americans out by next Tuesday, the deadline Biden had set long before the Taliban completed their takeover. But unknown thousands of other foreign nationals remain in Afghanistan and are struggling to get out.
The Taliban, who have wrested control of the country back nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks, insist the airlift must end on Aug. 31. Any decision by Biden to stay longer could reignite a war between the militants and the approximately 5,800 American troops who are executing the airlift at Kabul airport.
In Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference the U.S. must stick to its self-imposed deadline, saying “after that we won’t let Afghans be taken out” on evacuation flights. He also said the Taliban would bar Afghans from accessing roads to the airport, while allowing foreigners to pass in order to prevent large crowds from massing.
At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said Aug. 31 leaves enough time to get all Americans out, but he was less specific about completing the evacuation of all at-risk Afghans. He said about 4,000 American passport holders and their family members had been evacuated from Kabul as of Tuesday.
“We expect that number to grow in coming days,” Kirby said.
With the full U.S. withdrawal looming, the Pentagon said several hundred U.S. troops have been withdrawn because they are no longer needed to complete the evacuation mission. Kirby said these are headquarters staff, maintenance personnel and others. “It will have no impact on the mission at hand,” he said.
It’s unclear how many Americans who want to leave are still in the country, but their status is a hot political topic for Biden. Some Republicans bristled Tuesday at the U.S. seeming to comply with a Taliban edict. “We need to have the top priority to tell the Taliban that we’re going to get all of our people out, regardless of what timeline was initially set,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
And Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters Monday that “it was hard for me to imagine” wrapping up the airlifts by the end of the month.
One of the main refugee groups resettling Afghan evacuees in the United States said many people, including some American citizens, still were finding it impossible to get past Taliban checkpoints and crushing throngs outside the airport.
Read:Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
“The United States cannot pat itself on the back for a job half-done,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
Biden decided in April that he was ending the U.S. war, which began in October 2001. Former President Donald Trump had earlier agreed in negotiations with the Taliban to end the war in May.
However, Biden waited until the Taliban had swept to power this month, following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government and its army, to begin executing an airlift.
Tragic scenes at the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, and another seven died Sunday in a panicked stampede. An Afghan solider was killed Monday in a gunfight.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Group of Seven nations will not recognize a Taliban government unless it guarantees people can leave the country if they wish, both before and after the August deadline. A day earlier, the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, met with a top Taliban leader in Kabul. The extraordinary meeting reflected the gravity of the crisis and America’s need to coordinate with a Taliban group it has accused of gross human rights abuses.
For now, the U.S. military coordinates all air traffic in and out of the Kabul airport, but the Taliban will take over there after the U.S. pullout.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official said Burns, the CIA director, met with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — an extraordinary moment for the U.S. spy agency, which for two decades targeted the Taliban in paramilitary operations. It was not clear what exactly they discussed.
The CIA partnered with Pakistani forces to arrest Baradar in 2010, and he spent eight years in a Pakistani prison before the Trump administration persuaded Pakistan to release him in 2018 ahead of U.S. peace talks with the Taliban.
Mujahid, meanwhile, pushed back on the idea that Afghans need to flee, arguing that the Taliban have brought peace and security to the country. He said the main problem was the chaos at the airport, and he accused the U.S. of luring away engineers, doctors and other professionals on which the country relies.
Read:Defiant Biden is face of chaotic Afghan evacuation
Earlier, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said she had credible reports of “summary executions” of civilians and former security forces who were no longer fighting, the recruitment of child soldiers and restrictions on the rights of women to move around freely and of girls to go to school.
She did not specify the timing or source of her reports.
It has been difficult to determine how widespread abuses might be and whether they contradict the Taliban’s public statements or reflect disunity in its ranks.
From 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, the Taliban largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.
US troops surge evacuations out of Kabul but threats persist
The U.S. military pulled off its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the airlifts.
Twenty-eight U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, and 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660, White House officials said. The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of evacuation was due in part to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport.
“Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban,” Kirby said. “What we’ve seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport.”
Read: Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
With access still difficult, the U.S. military went beyond the airport to carry out another helicopter retrieval of Americans. U.S. officials said a military helicopter picked up 16 American citizens Monday and brought them onto the airfield for evacuation. This was at least the second such rescue mission beyond the airport; Kirby said that last Thursday, three Army helicopters picked up 169 Americans near a hotel just beyond the airport gate and flew them onto the airfield.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at the White House that talks with the Taliban are continuing as the administration looks for additional ways to safely move more Americans and others into the Kabul airport.
“We are in talks with the Taliban on a daily basis through both political and security channels,” he said, adding that ultimately it will be Biden’s decision alone whether to continue military-led evacuation operations beyond Aug. 31. That’s the date Biden had set for completing the withdrawal of troops.
California Democrat Rep Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, told reporters after a committee briefing Monday on the Afghanistan withdrawal “it was hard for me to imagine” wrapping up the airlifts by the end of the month. He also said it was clear “there were any number of warnings” to the administration “of a very rapid takeover” by the Taliban.
After more than a week of evacuations plagued by major obstacles, including Taliban forces and crushing crowds that are making approaching the airport difficult and dangerous, the number of people flown out met — and exceeded — U.S. projections for the first time. The count was more than twice the 3,900 flown out in the previous 24 hours on U.S. military planes.
Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, head of U.S. Transportation Command, which manages the military aircraft that are executing the Kabul airlift, told a Pentagon news conference that more than 200 planes are involved, including aerial refueling planes, and that arriving planes are spending less than an hour on the tarmac at Kabul before loading and taking off. He said the nonstop mission is taking a toll on aircrews.
“They’re tired,” Lyons said of the crews. “They’re probably exhausted in some cases.”
On a more positive note, Lyons said that in addition to the widely reported case of an Afghan woman giving birth aboard a U.S. evacuation aircraft, two other babies have been born in similar circumstances. He did not provide details.
The Pentagon said it has added a fourth U.S. military base, in New Jersey, to three others — in Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin — that are prepared to temporarily house arriving Afghans. Maj. Gen. Hank Williams, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told reporters there are now about 1,200 Afghans at those military bases. The four bases combined are capable of housing up to 25,000 evacuees, Kirby said.
Read: Afghan woman gives birth on US evacuation flight
Afghan evacuees continued to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington. Exhaustion clouded the faces of many of the adults. How does it feel to be here, a journalist asked one man. “We are safe,” he answered.
An older woman sank with relief into an offered wheelchair, and a little girl carried by an older boy shaded her eyes to look curiously around. The scramble to evacuate left many arrivals carrying only a bookbag or purse, or a plastic shopping bag of belongings. Some arrived for their new lives entirely empty-handed.
Biden said Sunday he would not rule out extending the evacuation beyond Aug. 31. But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will meet with Biden virtually on Tuesday in a G-7 leaders’ summit on the chaotic withdrawal, is expected to press Biden for an extension to get out the maximum number of foreigners and Afghan allies possible.
Lawmakers, veterans organizations and refugee advocates in the U.S. also are urging Biden to keep up the U.S. military’s evacuation out of the Kabul airport as long as it takes to airlift not just Americans, but Afghan allies and other Afghans most at risk from the Taliban.
But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in an interview with Sky News, said that Aug. 31 is a “red line” the U.S. must not cross and that extending the American presence would “provoke a reaction.”
Since the Taliban seized the capital Aug. 15, completing a stunning rout of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military, the U.S. has been carrying out the evacuation in coordination with the Taliban, who have held off on attacking Americans under a 2020 withdrawal deal with the Trump administration.
Monday’s warning signaled the Taliban could insist on shutting down the airlifts out of the Kabul airport in just over a week. Lawmakers, refugee groups, veterans’ organizations and U.S. allies have said ending the evacuation then could strand countless Afghans and foreigners still hoping for flights out.
Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of about 37,000 people.
A firefight just outside the airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said. It was the latest in days of often-lethal turmoil outside the airport. People coming in hopes of escaping Taliban rule face sporadic gunfire, beatings by the Taliban, and crowds that have trampled many.
Deadly gunfire at airport; Taliban insist on US pullout date
A firefight outside Kabul’s international airport killed an Afghan soldier early Monday, highlighting the perils of evacuation efforts even as the Taliban warned any attempt by U.S. troops to delay their withdrawal to give people more time to flee would “provoke a reaction.”
The shooting came as the Taliban moved to shore up their position and eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts north of the capital seized by opponents the day before and had surrounded Panjshir, the last province that remains out of their control.
Afghanistan’s security forces collapsed in the face of the Taliban advance, despite 20 years of Western aid, training and assistance. Tens of thousands of Afghans have sought to flee the country since, fearing a return to the brutal rule the Taliban imposed the last time they ran Afghanistan. That has led to chaos at the airport in Kabul, the main route out of the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden has not ruled out extending the evacuation beyond Aug. 31, the date he had set for completing the pullout of U.S. forces. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to press Biden for an extension.
But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in an interview with Sky News, said Aug. 31 is a “red line” and that extending the American presence would “provoke a reaction.”
Gunfire broke out early Monday near an entrance to the airport, where at least seven Afghans died a day earlier in a panicked stampede of thousands of people.
Navy Capt. William Urban, a U.S. military spokesman, said an unknown assailant shot at Afghan security forces at the airport’s northern gate, leading Afghan, U.S. and allied troops to open fire in response. He said an Afghan soldier was killed and “several Afghans” were wounded.
An Italian humanitarian organization that operates hospitals in Afghanistan said it had treated six patients with bullet wounds from the airport.
There was no comment from the Taliban, who in recent days have fired warning shots and lashed out with batons to try to control crowds swelling into the thousands outside the airport.
The tragic scenes around the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, in addition to the seven killed Sunday.
The Taliban blame the chaotic evacuation on the U.S. military and say there’s no need for any Afghans to flee. They have pledged to bring peace and security after decades of war and say they won’t seek revenge on those who worked with the U.S., NATO and the toppled Afghan government.
Addressing a conference of Muslim clerics, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid urged them to push back against Western “propaganda” about the Taliban and said the U.S. was undermining their rule by sending planes and offering Afghans asylum.
But Mohammad Khalid, another Taliban official addressing the same gathering, struck a more ominous tone, saying “history and Afghans will not forgive those who were trained in the U.S. and Europe and returned to kill their own people.”
He said foreign countries should not interfere in education, asking the clerics if they would “tolerate a young girl sitting next to a boy at school.” He also praised the role of suicide bombers in forcing the U.S. to withdraw.
The divergent messages raised doubts as to whether the Taliban are fully united behind the more moderate image their leadership is projecting. There have also been reports in recent days of the Taliban hunting down their former enemies.
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told the Bild newspaper that the main obstacle to getting people out was the crowds outside the airport.
Asked about Taliban assurances of safe passage to the airport she said: “So far, I can say that what we need is being granted; the danger comes more from these uncontrollable crowds of people.”
As the airlift continues, the U.S. government asked for 18 aircraft from American commercial carriers to assist in transporting Afghan refugees to their final destinations after their initial evacuation.
Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated or facilitated the evacuation of some 37,000 people on military and coalition flights. Those efforts are accelerating: In the 24 hours that ended early Monday, U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety, an official said.
Tens of thousands of people — Americans, other foreigners and Afghans who assisted in the war effort — are still waiting to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles.
There are also concerns that a local affiliate of the Islamic State group might target the crowds outside the airport with suicide bombers or fire missiles at U.S. aircraft. Military planes have been executing corkscrew landings, and other aircraft have fired flares upon takeoff — both measures used to avoid missile attacks.
The Taliban and IS have different ideologies and have fought in recent years, but one concern about the Taliban’s takeover is that they could again shelter extremist groups. The Taliban harbored al-Qaida while it orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, leading to the U.S. invasion in 2001. The Taliban now say they will not allow Afghanistan to be a base for attacks on other countries.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban have faced limited armed resistance from fighters in Baghlan province, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Kabul. The anti-Taliban fighters claimed to have seized three districts in the Andarab Valley on Sunday, but the Taliban said Monday that they had cleared them out overnight.
Khair Mohammad Khairkhwa and Abdul Ghani Mahmood, commanders of the anti-Taliban forces, said the recent fighting had caused casualties on both sides and displaced civilians.
Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said the group’s forces have also surrounded nearby Panjshir, the only one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces yet to fall to the Taliban. Several Taliban opponents have gathered there, pledging to resist any attempt to take the province by force.
Mujahid said there had been no fighting in Panjshir yet and that the Taliban are seeking a “peaceful solution.”
When the music stops: Afghan ‘happy place’ falls silent
A few years after the Taliban were ousted in 2001, and with Afghanistan still in ruins, Ahmad Sarmast left his home in Melbourne, Australia, on a mission: to revive music in the country of his birth.
The school he founded was a unique experiment in inclusiveness for the war-ravaged nation — with orphans and street kids in the student body, it sought to bring a measure of joy back to Kabul. The Taliban had notoriously banned music.
Last week, he watched in horror from his home in Melbourne images of the Taliban taking over the Afghan capital, capping a lightning offensive that restored the religious militia to power and stunned the world.
Sarmat’s two mobile phones haven’t stopped ringing since. Many of the calls are from panicked students asking him what happens next. Will the school be closed? Would the Taliban outlaw music again? Are their treasured instruments safe?
Read:Afghan woman gives birth on US evacuation flight
“I’m heartbroken,” Sarmast told The Associated Press. “It was so unexpected and so unpredictable that it was like an explosion, and everyone was caught by surprise,” he said of the Taliban takeover.
Sarmast had left Kabul on July 12 for his summer holiday, never imagining that just few weeks later the whole project and everything he’d worked for the past 20 years would be endangered. He’s terrified for his 350 students and 90 faculty, many of whom have already gone into hiding. Reports of Taliban searching for adversaries door-to-door have fanned their worries.
“We are all very, very fearful about the future of music, we are very fearful about our girls, about our faculty,” he said. Sarmast, who spoke in a Zoom interview, requested that additional details about the students and school not be published, because he did not want to endanger them.
In a sign of what the future holds, radio and TV stations stopped broadcasting music, except for Islamic songs — though it was not clear if the change in programming was a result of Taliban edicts or an effort by the stations to avoid potential problems with the insurgents.
Sarmast, 58, the son of a famous Afghan composer and conductor, had sought asylum in Australia in the 90s, a time of civil war in Afghanistan.
In 1996, the Taliban swept into power. The ultra-religious movement banned music as sinful, with the sole exception being some religious vocal pieces. Cassette tapes were ripped apart and strung from trees.
But after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Islamists, Sarmast dreamed of renewal. After obtaining a doctorate in musicology, he returned to Afghanistan and in 2010 founded the Afghanistan National Institute of Music.
Read:7 Afghans killed in chaos at Kabul airport
Donations from foreign governments and private sponsors soon poured in. The World Bank gave a cash grant of 2 million U.S. dollars. Almost 5 tons of musical equipment — violins, pianos, guitars and oboes — were trucked in, a gift from the German government and the German Society of Music Merchants. Students learned to play traditional Afghan string instruments like the rubab, sitar and sarod. The tabla drum was among the favorites.
“It was such an amazing school, everything was perfect,” said Elham Fanous, 24, who was the first student to graduate from the music institute in 2014, after spending seven years at the school.
“It changed my life and I really owe it to them,” he said of the school, which he describes as Afghanistan’s LaGuardia, a public high school in New York specialized in teaching music and arts. A visitor once called it “Afghanistan’s happy place.”
“I cannot believe this is happening,” Fanous added, speaking from New York, where he recently received his master’s degree in piano from the Manhattan School of Music. He was also the first student from Afghanistan to be admitted to a U.S. university music program.
The institute’s musicians traveled all over the world to represent their country, presenting a different face for a place known in the West only for war and extremism. Fanous himself performed at concerts in Poland, Italy and Germany.
In 2013, the institute’s youth orchestra embarked on its first U.S. tour, appearing at the Kennedy Center and selling out Carnegie Hall. Members of the orchestra included a girl who not long before had sold chewing gum on the streets of Kabul. An all-female orchestra called Zohra, named after a goddess of music in Persian literature, was set up in 2015.
In 2014, Sarmast was attending a concert in the auditorium of a French-run high school in Kabul when a huge bomb went off. He partially lost hearing in one ear and has had numerous operations to remove shrapnel from the back of his head since. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, accusing him in a statement of corrupting Afghanistan’s youth.
That only increased his determination, and he continued to split his time between running the school in Kabul, and Australia, where his family lives.
Read: Afghanistan situation remains extremely fluid: UN
Today, he aches when he thinks of the melodies once echoing down the school corridors and the lives of boys and girls now being upended.
“We’re all shattered, because my kids, they’ve been dreaming. They had huge dreams to be on the biggest stage of the world,” Sarmast said. “All my students had been dreaming of a peaceful Afghanistan. But that peaceful Afghanistan is fading away.”
Still, he hangs on to hope, believing young Afghans will resist. He is also counting on the international artistic community to put up a fight for the Afghans’ right to music.
“I’m still hopeful that my kids will be allowed to go back to the school and continue and to enjoy from learning and playing music,” he said.
7 Afghans killed in chaos at Kabul airport
A panicked crush of people trying to enter Kabul’s international airport killed seven Afghan civilians in the crowds, the British military said Sunday, showing the danger still posed to those trying to flee the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
The deaths come as a new, perceived threat from the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan has seen U.S. military planes do rapid, diving combat landings at the airport surrounded by Taliban fighters. Other aircraft have shot off flares on takeoff, an effort to confuse possible heat-seeking missiles targeting the planes.
Read:Over 100 Indians held by Taliban evacuated from Kabul
The changes come as the U.S. Embassy issued a new security warning Saturday telling citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without individual instruction from a U.S. government representative. Officials declined to provide more specifics about the IS threat but described it as significant. They said there have been no confirmed attacks as yet by the militants, who have battled the Taliban in the past.
On Sunday, the British military acknowledged the seven deaths of civilians in the crowds in Kabul. There have been stampedes and crushing injuries in the crowds, especially as Taliban fighters fire into the air to drive away those desperate to get on any flight out of the country.
“Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to manage the situation as safely and securely as possible,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
On Saturday, British and Western troops in full combat gear tried to control the crowds pressing in. They carried away some who were sweating and pale. With temperatures reaching 34 degree Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit), the soldiers sprayed water from a hose on those gathered or gave them bottled water to pour over their heads.
“Listen sir, you need to calm down,” one soldier told a man laying in the dirt, as another gave him an orange liquid. “Calm down.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether those killed had been physically crushed, suffocated or suffered a fatal heart attack in the crowds. Soldiers covered several corpses in white clothes to hide them from view. Other troops stood atop concrete barriers or shipping containers, trying to calm the crowd. Gunshots occasionally rang out.
Speaking to an Iranian state television channel late Saturday night in a video call, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem blamed the deaths at the airport on the Americans in what quickly became a combative interview.
Read:Afghanistan situation remains extremely fluid: UN
“The Americans announced that we would take you to America with us and people gathered at Kabul airport,” Naeem said. “If it was announced right now in any country in the world, would people not go?”
The host on Iranian state TV, which long has criticized America since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, quickly said: “It won’t happen in Iran.”
Naeem responded: “Be sure this will happen anywhere.”
Thousands rushed the airport last Monday in chaos that saw the U.S. try to clear off the runway with low-flying attack helicopters. Several Afghans plunged to their deaths while hanging off the side of a U.S. military cargo plane. It’s been difficult to know the full scale of the deaths and injuries from the chaos.
The Biden administration is considering calling on U.S. commercial airlines to provide planes and crews to assist in transporting Afghan refugees once they are evacuated from their country by military aircraft. Under the voluntary Civil Reserve Air Fleet program, civilian airlines add to military aircraft capability during a crisis related to national defense. That program was born in the wake of the Berlin airlift.
The U.S. Transportation Command said Saturday it had issued a warning order to U.S. carriers Friday night on the possible activation of the program. If called upon, commercial airlines would transport evacuees from way stations outside Afghanistan to another country or from Virginia’s Dulles International Airport to U.S. military bases.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s top political leader arrived in Kabul for talks on forming a new government. The presence of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who returned to Kandahar earlier this week from Qatar, was confirmed by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media. Baradar negotiated the militants’ 2020 peace deal with the U.S., and he is now expected to play a key role in negotiations between the Taliban and officials from the Afghan government that the militant group deposed.
Read:IS threat forces US changes to evacuations at Kabul airport
Afghan officials familiar with talks held in the capital say the Taliban have said they will not make announcements on their government until the Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. troop withdrawal passes.
Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, tweeted that he and ex-President Hamid Karzai met Saturday with Taliban’s acting governor for Kabul, who “assured us that he would do everything possible for the security of the people” of the city.
Over 100 Indians held by Taliban evacuated from Kabul
India on Sunday evacuated all its nationals who were briefly held by the Taliban in Kabul on Saturday.
A C-17 Air Force transport aircraft carrying 168 people -- including the 107 Indians -- from Kabul airport touched down at Hindon air base on Delhi's outskirts at 10am (IST).
Read:All Indian nationals held by Taliban in Kabul released: Reports
Some 26 Afghan nationals, including two prominent senators from Kabul, were also among those evacuated by the Indian Air Force, officials said.
"I feel like crying. Everything that was built in the past 20 years is now finished. It's zero now," Indian-origin Afghan senator Narender Singh Khalsa told the media upon arrival.
Earlier this morning, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted few photos of the evacuation efforts at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
"Evacuation continues! IAF special repatriation flight with 168 passengers onboard, including 107 Indian nationals, is on its way to Delhi from Kabul," he wrote.
Apart from the military plane, three other commercial flights evacuating another 100 stranded Indian nationals from Kabul also landed at Delhi airport this morning.
On Saturday morning, these 107 Indian nationals were among some 150 people picked up by armed Taliban fighters from outside the Kabul airport.
Read: Several Indians among 150 kidnapped by Taliban in Kabul: Reports
Quoting sources, multiple media outlets had reported that the Indians were "kidnapped" by the Taliban and taken to a police station, where their travel documents were checked.
These Indians were subsequently released, the reports said, citing the same sources.
On Friday, the Indian Air Force airlifted 85 Indians from Kabul. And three days prior to that, India evacuated all its diplomatic staff, including the Ambassador, from Kabul.
Though Afghanistan has closed its airspace for all civilian flights, military aircraft are still evacuating foreign nationals with the help of the US troops stationed at Kabul airport.
In the past two weeks, India has evacuated all its diplomatic staff and their families from its three consulates in Afghanistan -- Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat.
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last Sunday, with the American troops virtually ending their 20-year military presence in the South Asian country.
Read:Reports of targeted Taliban killings fuel Afghans' fears
India is worried about the implications of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, given it has so far infused over three billion USD worth development aid into that country.
The horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an Indian airliner in 1999 also worries Delhi. "It's a wait and watch situation for us," a diplomat recently said.
All Indian nationals held by Taliban in Kabul released: Reports
All the Indian nationals held by the Taliban in Kabul have been released and are now inside the main airport waiting to be airlifted from war-ravaged Afghanistan, media reports said.
Some 150 people, mostly Indian nationals, were reportedly picked up by armed Taliban fighters from outside the Kabul airport on Saturday morning.
Quoting unnamed sources, multiple media outlets reported that all the "kidnapped" Indian nationals were taken by the Taliban to a nearby police station, where their travel documents were checked.
Also read: Several Indians among 150 kidnapped by Taliban in Kabul: Reports
These Indians were subsequently released, and "they are now inside the Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated soon", the reports said, citing the same sources.
Though the Indian Foreign Ministry didn't make any official confirmation, a Taliban spokesman earlier told the local media that the Indians were not kidnapped but taken to the police station for questioning.
The Indians nationals were reportedly picked up by the Taliban a couple of hours after an Indian Air Force transport plane evacuated some 85 Indians from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
"The aircraft has safely landed in Tajikistan. The plane will return to India after refuelling. A second aircraft is on standby at the Kabul airport for carrying out further evacuations," sources in Delhi told UNB.
On Tuesday, India evacuated all its diplomatic staff, including the Ambassador, from its embassy in Kabul on a special flight of the Air Force, some 36 hours after the Taliban seized the capital.
Also read: Reports of targeted Taliban killings fuel Afghans' fears
"In view of the prevailing circumstances, it has been decided that our Ambassador in Kabul and his Indian staff will move to India immediately," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted that morning.
Though Afghanistan has closed its airspace for all civilian flights, military aircraft are still evacuating stranded foreign nationals with the help of the American troops stationed at the Kabul airport.
The Indian government has, meanwhile, introduced a new emergency category of e-visa to fast-track applications from Afghans seeking refuge in this country.
In the past two weeks, India has evacuated all its diplomatic staff and their families from its three consulates in Afghanistan -- Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat.
In a security advisory last week, the Indian Embassy in Kabul asked all Indian nationals visiting, staying and working in Afghanistan to keep themselves updated on the availability of commercial flights and make immediate arrangements to return to India.
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on Sunday evening, with the US troops virtually ending their 20-year military presence in the South Asian country.
India is particularly worried about the implications of the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan, given the fact that it has so far infused over three billion USD worth development aid into that country and the horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an airliner in 1999.
Also read: Taliban suppress more dissent as economic challenges loom
Several Indians among 150 kidnapped by Taliban in Kabul: Reports
As many as 150 people, mostly Indian nationals, have been kidnapped by the Taliban from outside the Kabul airport, multiple media reports said on Saturday.
Though the Indian Foreign Ministry is yet to make any official confirmation, the Taliban have denied the reports. "The Indians have been taken to a nearby police station for questioning. They will be released soon," a Taliban spokesman told the Afghan media.
The Indians nationals were reportedly picked up by the Taliban a couple of hours after an Indian Air Force transport plane evacuated some 85 Indians from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
READ: Reports of targeted Taliban killings fuel Afghans' fears
"The aircraft has safely landed in Tajikistan. The plane will return to India after refuelling. A second aircraft is on standby at the Kabul airport for carrying out further evacuations," sources in Delhi told UNB.
On Tuesday, India evacuated all its diplomatic staff, including the Ambassador, from its embassy in Kabul on a special flight of the Air Force, some 36 hours after the Taliban seized the capital.
"In view of the prevailing circumstances, it has been decided that our Ambassador in Kabul and his Indian staff will move to India immediately," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted that morning.
Though Afghanistan has closed its airspace for all civilian flights, military aircraft are still evacuating stranded foreign nationals with the help of the American troops stationed at the Kabul airport.
The Indian government has, meanwhile, introduced a new emergency category of e-visa to fast-track applications from Afghans seeking refuge in this country.
In the past two weeks, India has evacuated all its diplomatic staff and their families from its three consulates in Afghanistan -- Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat.
In a security advisory last week, the Indian Embassy in Kabul asked all Indian nationals visiting, staying and working in Afghanistan to keep themselves updated on the availability of commercial flights and make immediate arrangements to return to India.
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on Sunday evening, with the US troops virtually ending their 20-year military presence in the South Asian country.
READ: How social platforms are dealing with the Taliban
India is particularly worried about the implications of the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan, given the fact that it has so far infused over three billion USD worth development aid into that country and the horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an airliner in 1999.