Kabul
Taliban suppress more dissent as economic challenges loom
The Taliban violently dispersed scattered protests for a second day Thursday amid warnings that Afghanistan’s already weakened economy could crumble further without the massive international aid that sustained the toppled Western-backed government.
The Taliban have sought to project moderation and say they want good relations with the international community, but they will face a difficult balancing act in making concessions to the West, satisfying their own hard-line followers and suppressing dissent.
A U.N. official warned of dire food shortages, and experts said the country was severely in need of cash, while noting that the Taliban are unlikely to enjoy the generous international aid that made up most of the ousted government’s budget.
The Taliban have pledged to forgive those who fought them and to restore security and normal life to the country after decades of war. But many Afghans fear a return to the Taliban’s harsh rule in the late 1990s, when the group largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.
Read: US struggles to speed Kabul airlift despite Taliban, chaos
On Thursday, a procession of cars and people near Kabul’s airport carried long black, red and green banners in honor of the Afghan flag — a banner that is becoming a symbol of defiance. Video from another protest in Nangarhar province showed a bleeding demonstrator with a gunshot wound. Onlookers tried to carry him away.
In Khost province, Taliban authorities instituted a 24-hour curfew Thursday after violently breaking up another protest, according to information obtained by journalists monitoring from abroad. The authorities did not immediately acknowledge the demonstration or the curfew.
Protesters also took to the streets in Kunar province, according to witnesses and social media videos that lined up with reporting by The Associated Press.
The demonstrations — which came as people celebrated Afghan Independence Day and some commemorated the Shiite Ashoura festival — were a remarkable show of defiance after Taliban fighters violently dispersed a protest Wednesday. At least one person was killed at that rally, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, after demonstrators lowered the Taliban’s flag and replaced it with the tricolor.
Meanwhile, opposition figures gathering in the last area of the country not under Taliban rule talked of launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which joined with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.
It was not clear how serious a threat they posed given that Taliban fighters overran nearly the entire country in a matter of days with little resistance from Afghan forces.
The Taliban so far have offered no specifics on how they will lead, other than to say they will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. They are in talks with senior officials of previous Afghan governments. But they face an increasingly precarious situation.
“A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,” warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the U.N.’s World Food Program in Afghanistan.
Beyond the difficulties of bringing food into the landlocked nation dependent on imports, she said that over 40% of the country’s crop has been lost to drought. Many who fled the Taliban advance now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.
“This is really Afghanistan’s hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,” she said.
Hafiz Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said some food has flowed into the capital, but prices have gone up. He hesitated to pass those costs onto his customers but said he had to.
Read: Afghans protest Taliban in emerging challenge to their rule
“It is better to have it,” he said. “If there were nothing, then that would be even worse.”
Two of Afghanistan’s key border crossings with Pakistan are now open for trade. However, traders still fear insecurity on the roads and confusion over customs duties that could push them to price their goods higher.
Amid all the uncertainty and fears of Taliban rule, thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country.
At Kabul’s international airport, military evacuation flights continued, but access to the airport remained difficult. On Thursday, Taliban fighters fired into the air to try to control the crowds gathered at the airport’s blast walls.
After a chaotic start in which people rushed the runway and some clung to a plane taking off, the U.S. military is ramping up evacuations and now has enough aircraft to get 5,000 to 9,000 people out a day, Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor said Thursday.
President Joe Biden said he was committed to keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan until every American is evacuated, even if that means maintaining a military presence there beyond his Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Biden said he thought the Taliban were going through an “existential crisis” about whether they wanted to be internationally recognized as a legitimate government. “I’m not sure they do,” he said.
The Taliban have urged people to return to work, but most government officials remain in hiding or are themselves attempting to flee. The U.S. has apparently frozen Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and shipments of dollars that help sustain the local currency, the afghani. The International Monetary Fund has cut off access to loans or other resources for now.
“The afghani has been defended by literally planeloads of U.S. dollars landing in Kabul on a very regular basis, sometimes weekly,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant researcher with the Overseas Development Institute. “If the Taliban don’t get cash infusions soon to defend the afghani, I think there’s a real risk of a currency devaluation that makes it hard to buy bread on the streets of Kabul for ordinary people.”
Smith, who has written a book on Afghanistan, said the Taliban are unlikely to ask for the same billions in international aid sought by the country’s fallen civilian government — large portions of which were siphoned off by corruption.
The Taliban have long profited off the drug trade in Afghanistan, which is the world’s top cultivator of the poppy from which opium and heroin are produced. The militants now have access to customs duties from the border crossings, which were the main source of domestic income for the previous government.
Read: Taliban militants violently disperse rare Afghan protest
But 75% of the previous government’s budget was covered by donor countries.
“It costs a lot less to run an insurgency than it does to run a government,” said Laurel Miller, director of the Asia program at the Crisis Group, an international think tank. “The opium trade and the border crossings (are) not enough money to run a government, at least as it has been run in recent years.”
The Taliban will struggle to make accommodations to the West while satisfying the ultraconservative Muslim fighters that brought them to power after a 20-year insurgency, with the latter likely being the priority, Miller said. Even a significant shift toward moderation might not be enough for Western countries to keep the aid flowing.
“How ready is Congress going to be to vote for development assistance for a Taliban government?” she said.
US struggles to speed Kabul airlift despite Taliban, chaos
The United States struggled Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an Aug. 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be airlifted from the chaotic country.
Taliban fighters and their checkpoints ringed the airport — major barriers for Afghans who fear that their past work with Westerners makes them prime targets for retribution. Hundreds of Afghans who lacked any papers or clearance for evacuation also congregated outside the airport, adding to the chaos that has prevented even some Afghans who do have papers and promises of flights from getting through.
It didn’t help that many of the Taliban fighters could not read the documents.
In a hopeful sign, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in Washington that 6,000 people were cleared for evacuation Thursday and were expected to board military flights in coming hours. That would mark a major increase from recent days. About 2,000 passengers were flown out on each of the past two days, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
Read:UNHCR issues non-return advisory for Afghanistan
Kirby said the military has aircraft available to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 people per day, but until Thursday far fewer designated evacuees had been able to reach, and then enter, the airport.
Kirby told reporters the limiting factor has been available evacuees, not aircraft. He said efforts were underway to speed processing, including adding State Department consular officers to verify paperwork of Americans and Afghans who managed to get to the airport. Additional entry gates had been opened, he said.
And yet, at the current rate it would be difficult for the U.S. to evacuate all of the Americans and Afghans who are qualified for and seeking evacuation by Aug. 31. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would ensure no American was left behind, even if that meant staying beyond August, an arbitrary deadline that he set weeks before the Taliban climaxed a stunning military victory by taking Kabul last weekend. It was not clear if Biden might consider extending the deadline for evacuees who aren’t American citizens.
At the airport, military evacuation flights continued, but access remained difficult for many. On Thursday, Taliban militants fired into the air to try to control the crowds gathered at the airport’s blast walls. Men, women and children fled. U.S. Navy fighter jets flew overhead, a standard military precaution but also a reminder to the Taliban that the U.S. has firepower to respond to a combat crisis.
There is no accurate figure of the number of people — Americans, Afghans or others — who are in need of evacuation as the process is almost entirely self-selecting. For example, the State Department says that when it ordered its nonessential embassy staff to leave Kabul in April after Biden’s withdrawal announcement, fewer than 4,000 Americans had registered for security updates. The actual number, including dual U.S.-Afghan citizens along with family members, is likely much higher, with estimates ranging from 11,000 to 15,000. Tens of thousands of Afghans may also be in need of escape.
Read: Afghans protest Taliban in emerging challenge to their rule
Compounding the uncertainty, the U.S. government has no way to track how many registered Americans may have left Afghanistan already. Some may have returned to the United States but others may have gone to third countries.
At the Pentagon, Kirby declined to say whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had recommended to Biden that he extend the Aug. 31 deadline. Given the Taliban’s takeover of the country, staying beyond that date would require at least the Taliban’s acquiescence, he said. He said he knew of no such talks yet between U.S. and Taliban commanders, who have been in regular touch for days to limit conflict at the airport as part of what the White House has termed a “safe passage” agreement worked out on Sunday.
“I think it is just a fundamental fact of the reality of where we are, that communications and a certain measure of agreement with the Taliban on what we’re trying to accomplish has to occur,” Kirby said.
Of the approximately 2,000 people airlifted from the airport in the 24 hours ended Wednesday morning, nearly 300 were Americans, Kirby said. U.S. lawmakers were briefed Thursday morning that 6,741 people had been evacuated since Aug. 14, including 1,762 American citizens and Green Card holders, according to two congressional aides.
Although Afghanistan had been a hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said Thursday that evacuees are not required to get negative COVID-19 results.
“A blanket humanitarian waiver has been implemented for COVID-19 testing for all persons the U.S. government is relocating from Afghanistan,” the department said. Medical exams, including COVID-19 tests, had been required for evacuees prior to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, which added extra urgency to efforts to get at-risk Afghans out.
Additional American troops continued to arrive at the airport. As of Thursday there were about 5,200, including Marines who specialize in evacuation coordination and an Air Force unit that specializes in emergency airport operations. Biden has authorized a total deployment of about 6,000.
Hoping to secure evacuation seats are American citizens and other foreigners, Afghan allies of the Western forces, and women, journalists, activists and others most at risk from the fundamentalist Taliban.
Read:Taliban militants violently disperse rare Afghan protest
Will U.S. troops go beyond the airport perimeter to collect and escort people? Austin suggested on Wednesday that this was not currently feasible. “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” he told reporters.
Austin added that evacuations would continue “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”
Afghans in danger because of their work with the U.S. military or U.S organizations, and Americans scrambling to get them out, also pleaded with Washington to cut the red tape that has complicated matters.
“If we don’t sort this out, we’ll literally be condemning people to death,” said Marina Kielpinski LeGree, the American head of a nonprofit, Ascend. The organization’s young Afghan female colleagues were in the mass of people waiting for flights at the airport in the wake of days of mayhem, tear gas and gunshots.
Taliban marks Afghan independence as challenges to rule rise
The Taliban celebrated Afghanistan’s Independence Day on Thursday by declaring it had beaten the United States, but challenges to their rule ranging from running the country’s frozen government to potentially facing armed opposition began to emerge.
From ATMs being out of cash to worries about food across this nation of 38 million people reliant on imports, the Taliban face all the challenges of the civilian government they dethroned without the level of international aid it enjoyed. Meanwhile, opposition figures fleeing to Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley now talk of launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.
The Taliban so far have offered no plans for the government they plan to lead, other than to say it will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. But the pressure continues to grow.
Read:Taliban militants violently disperse rare Afghan protest
“A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,” warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan.
Thursday marked Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule in the central Asian nation.
“Fortunately, today we are celebrating the anniversary of independence from Britain,” the Taliban said. “We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant of power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan.”
Unacknowledged by the insurgents, however, was their violent suppression of a protest Wednesday in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which saw demonstrations lower the Taliban’s flag and replace it with Afghanistan’s tricolor. At least one person was killed.
In Khost, Taliban authorities instituted a 24-hour curfew in the province after violently breaking up a similar flag protest, according to information obtained by journalists monitoring from abroad. The militants did not immediately acknowledge the incident, nor the provincial curfew.
While urging people to return to work, most government officials remain hiding in their homes or attempting to flee the Taliban. Questions remain over Afghanistan’s $9 billion foreign reserves, the vast majority now apparently frozen in the U.S. The country’s Central Bank head warns the country’s supply of physical U.S. dollars is “close to zero,” which will see inflation raise the prices of needed food while depreciating its currency, the afghani.
Read: Afghans plead for faster US evacuation from Taliban rule
Meanwhile, a drought has seen over 40% of the country’s crop lost, McGroarty said. Many fled the Taliban advance and now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.
“This is really Afghanistan’s hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,” she said.
Mahdi Ali, who owns a grocery store in western Kabul, said that while some markets and stores had begun to open, challenges remained.
“Today I bought as much as I could from the local companies that bring groceries with cars,” he said. Meanwhile, he saw Taliban fighters seizing government cars and setting up checkpoints to search vehicles. The militants also checked his store several times.
Two of Afghanistan’s key border crossings with Pakistan, Torkham near Jalalabad and Chaman near Spin Boldak, are now open for cross-border trade. Hundreds of trucks have passed through, Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said. However, traders still fear insecurity on the roads, confusion over customs duties and pressures to price their goods even higher given the economic conditions.
There has been no armed opposition to the Taliban. But videos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of the Northern Alliance militias that allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, appear to show potential opposition figures gathering there. That area is in the only province that has not fallen to the Taliban.
Read: Taliban encounter Afghan cities remade in their absence
Those figures include members of the deposed government — Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who asserted on Twitter that he is the country’s rightful president, and Defense Minister Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi — as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.
In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, Massoud asked for weapons and aid to fight the Taliban.
“I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban,” he wrote. “The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.”
Taliban militants violently disperse rare Afghan protest
Taliban militants attacked protesters Wednesday in Afghanistan who dared to take down their banner and replace it with the country’s flag, killing at least one person and fueling fears about how the insurgents would govern this fractious nation.
While the Taliban have insisted they will respect human rights, unlike during their previously draconian rule, the attack in Jalalabad came as many Afghans were hiding at home or trying to flee the country, fearful of abuses by the loosely controlled militant organization. Many people have expressed dread that the two-decade Western experiment to remake Afghanistan will not survive the resurgent Taliban, who took control of the country in a blitz that took just days.
Taliban leaders talked Wednesday with senior Afghan officials about a future government. In a potential complication to any effort to stabilize the country, the head of the country’s central bank warned that American sanctions over the Taliban’s designation as a terrorist organization threatened Afghanistan’s economy, which already is dangerously low on hard foreign currency.
Read:Afghans plead for faster US evacuation from Taliban rule
One figure who was not at the talks in Kabul: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled as the Taliban closed in on the capital. The United Arab Emirates acknowledged Wednesday that the Gulf nation had taken him and his family in on humanitarian grounds.
In an early sign of protest to the Taliban’s rule, dozens gathered in the eastern city of Jalalabad and a nearby market town to raise the tricolor national flag, a day before Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule. They lowered the Taliban flag — a white banner with an Islamic inscription — that the militants have raised in the areas they captured.
Video footage later showed the Taliban firing into the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd. Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, said the Taliban beat him and a TV cameraman from another agency.
A local health official said the violence killed at least one person and wounded six. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists. The Taliban did not acknowledge the protest or the violence.
It was a rare resistance to their rule. In the days since the Taliban seized Kabul on Sunday, the militants only faced one other protest by a few women in the capital.
There has been no armed opposition to the Taliban. But videos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of the Northern Alliance militias that allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, appear to show potential opposition figures gathering there. That area is in the only province that has not fallen to the Taliban.
Those figures include members of the deposed government — Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who asserted on Twitter that he is the country’s rightful president, and Defense Minister Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi — as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.
In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, Massoud asked for weapons and aid to fight the Taliban.
Read: Afghanistan's ex-president now in Abu Dhabi
“I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban,” he wrote. “The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.”
The Taliban, meanwhile, pressed ahead with their efforts to form an “inclusive, Islamic government.” They have been holding talks with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government. Mohammad Yusof Saha, a spokesman for Karzai, said preliminary meetings with Taliban officials would lead to eventual negotiations with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the top Taliban political leader who just returned to the country from Qatar.
Karzai and Abdullah met Wednesday with Anas Haqqani, a senior leader in a powerful Taliban faction called the Haqqani Network. That network, once allied to the U.S. during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was blamed for a series of devastating suicide attacks amid the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The Haqqani Network, like the Taliban at large, faces U.S. sanctions.
Taliban encounter Afghan cities remade in their absence
Ezanullah, one of thousands of young Taliban fighters from the countryside who rode into Afghanistan’s capital over the weekend, had never seen anything like it.
The paved streets of Kabul were lined with towering apartment blocks, glass office buildings and shopping malls. The plush furniture inside the Interior Ministry was like “something I thought of in a dream,” said the 22-year-old fighter from the country’s mountainous east.
Read:Taliban promise women's rights, security under Islamic rule
He said he plans to ask his commander if he can stay. “I don’t want to leave,” he said.
The encounter highlights how much Kabul and other Afghan cities have changed in the 20 years since the Taliban, who mainly hail from rugged rural areas, last ruled the country. An entire generation of Afghans has come of age under a modernizing, Western-backed government flush with development aid.
Many fear those gains will be reversed now that the Taliban are back in power and the last U.S. troops are on their way out.
Thousands have flocked to the airport trying to flee, most of them men unaccompanied by families. Younger Afghans have no memory of Taliban rule but fear its return will mean the loss of freedoms. The militants imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion drove them from power.
The Taliban, who largely hail from Afghanistan’s conservative countryside, have signaled moderation in recent days — offering amnesty to those who fought them, inviting women to return to work and pledging to restore normal life after decades of war. But many Afghans, particularly women, remain deeply skeptical of the group’s intentions.
Ezanullah was surprised when two women said hello to him on the street.
“They said we were afraid of you and thought you were horrible,” he said. “But I told them you are like my sisters, and we will let you go to school and continue your education and give you security.”
“Just look after your hijab,” he added, referring to the Islamic headscarf that covers the hair but not the face.
Read: Taliban announces ‘amnesty,’ urges women to join government
Whether or not the Taliban have truly changed, the country they now rule is light years ahead of the one they captured in 1996 after four years of civil war following the Soviet withdrawal and the 1992 collapse of a pro-communist government.
Then the city was in ruins, ravaged by warlords who would later ally with the U.S. Most Afghans traveled Kabul’s rutted roads by bicycle or in beat-up yellow taxis. There was only one computer in the entire country, and it belonged to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s reclusive leader, who did not know how to turn it on.
Taliban announces ‘amnesty,’ urges women to join government
A Taliban official has announced a general “amnesty” for all in Afghanistan and urged women to join its government.
Enamullah Samangani, member of Islamic Emirate’s cultural commission, made the comments Tuesday on Afghan state television, which the militants now control.
“The Islamic Emirate don’t want women to be victims,” he said, using the militants’ term for Afghanistan.
Read:Taliban sweep into Afghan capital after government collapses
He added: “The structure of government is not fully clear, but based on experience, there should be a fully Islamic leadership and all sides should join.”
Meanwhile calm returned to Kabul’s international airport Tuesday after a chaotic day saw hundreds of Afghans fleeing the Taliban rush the runway and hang off a U.S. Air Force flight, with several plunging to the deaths in chaos that killed at least seven people.
Read: Who are the Taliban?
The crowds came Monday while the Taliban enforced their rule over the capital of 5 million people after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country’s Western-backed government. There were no major reports of abuses or fighting, but many residents stayed home and remained fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted.
7 killed in Kabul airport chaos as Taliban patrols capital
Thousands of Afghans rushed into Kabul’s main airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban that they held onto a military jet as it took off and plunged to their deaths. At least seven people died in the chaos, U.S. officials said, as America’s longest war ended with its enemy the victor.
The crowds came while the Taliban enforced their rule over the capital of 5 million people after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country’s Western-backed government. There were no major reports of abuses or fighting, but many residents stayed home and remained fearful after the insurgents’ advance saw prisons emptied and armories looted.
Across the nation, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that thousands had been wounded in fighting. Elsewhere, security forces and politicians handed over their provinces and bases without a fight, likely believing the two-decade Western experiment to remake Afghanistan would not survival the resurgent Taliban. The last American troops had planned to withdraw at the end of the month.
READ: Australia sends jets to fly personnel from Kabul
“The world is following events in Afghanistan with a heavy heart and deep disquiet about what lies ahead,” warned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
As the U.S. military and others continued evacuation flights, Afghans swarmed over the international airport’s tarmac. Some climbed into aircraft parked on the taxiway, while others dangled precariously off a jet bridge.
U.S. troops took positions to guard the active runway, but the crowd stormed past them and their armored vehicles. Gunshots rang out. As one U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III tried to take off, a helicopter did low runs in front of it to try to drive people off the runway.
Videos showed a group of Afghans hanging onto the plane just before takeoff and several falling through the air as the airplane rapidly gained altitude over the city.
Senior American military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing operation, told The Associated Press that the chaos left seven dead, including several who fell from the flight. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said U.S. forces killed two people he described as carrying weapons in the melee. He said 1,000 more U.S. troops would be deployed to secure the airfield and back up the 2,500 already there.
All flights at the airport — both military and civilian — were halted until Afghan civilians can be cleared from the runway, Kirby added.
Late Monday night, hundreds of people remained trapped between American forces trying to push them out of the airport and Taliban forces trying to keep them in, witnesses said. An Associated Press journalist also saw what appeared to be an airstrike target two vehicles near the airport.
Shafi Arifi, who had a ticket to travel to Uzbekistan on Sunday, was unable to board his plane because it was packed with people who had raced across the tarmac and climbed aboard, with no police or airport staff in sight.
“There was no room for us to stand,” said the 24-year-old. “Children were crying, women were shouting, young and old men were so angry and upset, no one could hear each other. There was no oxygen to breathe.”
After a woman fainted and was carried off the plane, Arifi gave up and returned home.
Other Afghans, like Rakhmatula Kuyash, are also trying to leave through land border crossings, all of which are now controlled by the Taliban.
“I’m lost and I don’t know what to do,” said Kuyash, who crossed into Uzbekistan on Sunday after leaving his children and relatives in Afghanistan. “I left everything behind.”
Others were not so lucky. Uzbekistan air defenses shot down an Afghan military aircraft that tried to enter the country without permission. The two pilots were reportedly injured and in custody.
Meanwhile, President Ashraf Ghani, who earlier left the country, faced Russian allegations he fled Kabul with four cars and a helicopter full of cash. His whereabouts remained unclear.
The U.S. Embassy has been evacuated and the American flag lowered, with diplomats relocating to the airport to help with the evacuation. Other Western countries also closed their missions and were flying out staff and their citizens.
In interviews with U.S. television networks, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan blamed the Afghan military for the Taliban’s rapid takeover, saying it lacked the will to fight.
READ: Afghan president flees the country as Taliban move on Kabul
However, the ease with which the Taliban took control goes beyond military prowess, the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor wrote.
“The speed of the Taliban’s final advance suggests less military dominance than effective political insurgency coupled with an incohesive Afghan political system and security force struggling with flagging morale,” it said.
The Taliban offensive through the country stunned American officials. Just days before the insurgents entered Kabul with little if any resistance, a U.S. military assessment predicted it could take months for the capital to fall.
The rout threatened to erase 20 years of Western efforts to remake Afghanistan that saw tens of thousands of Afghans killed as well as more than 3,500 U.S. and allied troops. The initial invasion in 2001 drove the Taliban from power and scattered al-Qaida, which had planned the 9/11 attacks while being sheltered in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, which ruled in accordance with a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, women were largely confined to their homes and suspected criminals faced amputation or public execution. The insurgents have sought to project greater moderation in recent years, but many Afghans remain skeptical.
Journalists so far have been able to work, though Taliban militants visited the private satellite channel Tolo TV looking for “government-issued weapons,” said station owner Saad Mohsini. Some militants put on Afghan military uniforms and began doing patrols, arresting suspected robbers.
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees, separately described interactions with the Taliban as “relatively positive.”
On Monday, Nillan, a 27-year-old resident of Kabul who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of reprisals, said she did not see a single woman out on the streets during a 15-minute drive, “only men and boys.”
“It feels like time has stopped. Everything’s changed,” she told the AP.
She added: “It feels like our life and our future has ended.”
Westerners rush to leave Kabul, rescue Afghans
The beating blades of US military helicopters whisking American diplomats to Kabul's airport Sunday punctuated a frantic rush by thousands of other foreigners and Afghans to flee to safety as well, as a stunningly swift Taliban takeover entered the heart of Afghanistan's capital Kabul.
Two weeks from the Biden administration's planned full military withdrawal, the US was pouring thousands of fresh troops back into the country temporarily to safeguard what was gearing up to be a large-scale airlift.
Shortly before dawn Monday Kabul time, State Department spokesman Ned Price announced the US had completed the evacuation of its embassy in Afghanistan, lowering the American flag.
At the same time, the administration announced it was taking over air traffic control at Kabul's international airport, to manage the airlifts. Sporadic gunfire there Sunday frightened Afghan families fearful of Taliban rule and desperate for flights out, one of the last avenues for escape in an evacuation made far more urgent by the Taliban's weeklong sweep across the country.
NATO allies that had pulled out their forces ahead of the Biden administration's intended August 31 withdrawal deadline were sending troops back in as well this weekend to protect evacuations of their own.
Some complained the US was failing to move fast enough to bring to safety Afghans at risk of reprisal from the Taliban for past work with the Americans and other NATO forces.
"This is murder by incompetence," said US Air Force veteran Sam Lerman, struggling Sunday from his home in Woodbridge, Virginia, to find a way out for an Afghan contractor who had guarded Americans and other NATO forces at Afghanistan's Bagram air base for a decade.
Taliban forces moved early Sunday into a capital beset by fear and declared they were awaiting a peaceful surrender.
READ: Australia sends jets to fly personnel from Kabul
That arrival of the first waves of Taliban into Kabul prompted the US to begin evacuating the embassy building in full, leaving only acting ambassador Ross Wilson and a core of other diplomats operating at the airport.
Even as CH-47 helicopters shuttled American diplomats to the airport, and facing criticism at home over the administration's handling of the withdrawal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the 1975 fall of Saigon.
A joint statement from the US State and Defense departments pledged late Sunday to fly thousands of Americans, local embassy staff and other "particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals" out of the country.
It gave no details, but high-profile Afghan women, journalists, and Afghans who have worked with Western governments and nonprofits are among those who most fear Taliban targeting for perceived Western ways or ties.
The statement promised to speed up visa processing for Afghans who used to work with American troops and officials in particular.
To many, the evacuations, and last-ditch rescue attempts by Americans and other foreigners trying to save Afghan allies, appeared far from orderly.
Hundreds or more Afghans crowded in a part of Kabul airport away from many of the evacuating Westerners. Some of them, including a man with a broken leg sitting on the ground, lined up for what was expected to be the last flight out by the country's Ariana Airlines.
US officials reported gunfire near the airport Sunday evening and for a time urged civilians to stop coming. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the airport was open for commercial flights – the only escape left for many ordinary Afghans – but would experience stoppages.
READ: Afghan president flees the country as Taliban move on Kabul
US C-17 transport planes were due to bring thousands of fresh American troops to the airport, then fly out again with evacuating US Embassy staffers. The Pentagon was now sending an additional 1,000 troops, bringing the total number to about 6,000, a US defence official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a deployment decision not yet announced by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon intends to have enough aircraft to fly out as many as 5,000 civilians a day, both Americans and the Afghan translators and others who worked with the US during the war.
It was by no means clear how long Kabul's deteriorating security would allow any evacuations to continue.
Chaos as thousands flee Afghanistan after Taliban takeover
Thousands packed into the Afghan capital’s airport on Monday, rushing the tarmac and pushing onto planes in desperate attempts to flee the country after the Taliban overthrew the Western-backed government. U.S. soldiers fired warning shots as they struggled to manage the chaotic evacuation.
The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing a stunning end to a two-decade campaign in which the U.S. and its allies had tried to transform Afghanistan. The country’s Western-trained security forces collapsed or fled in the face of an insurgent offensive that tore through the country in just over a week, ahead of the planned withdrawal of the last U.S. troops at the end of the month.
In the capital, a tense calm set in, with most people hiding in their homes as the Taliban deployed fighters at major intersections. There were scattered reports of looting and armed men knocking on doors and gates, and there was less traffic than usual on eerily quiet streets. Fighters could be seen searching vehicles at one of the city’s main squares.
Many fear chaos, after the Taliban freed thousands of prisoners and the police simply melted away, or a return to the kind of brutal rule the Taliban imposed when it was last in power.
Read: Taliban seek to project calm as US speeds chaotic evacuation
Wahidullah Qadiri, a Kabul resident, said he hoped for peace after decades of war that have claimed the lives of two of his brothers and a cousin.
“We haven’t seen anything but catastrophes and fighting, so we always live with hope for a long-lasting peace,” he said.
Thousands of others doubted peace would come and raced to Kabul’s international airport. Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of people running across the tarmac as U.S. soldiers fired warning shots in the air. One showed a crowd pushing and shoving its way up a staircase, trying to board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.
Massouma Tajik, a 22-year-old data analyst, described scenes of panic at the airport, where she was hoping to board an evacuation flight.
After waiting six hours, she heard shots from outside, where a crowd of men and women were trying to climb aboard a plane. She said U.S. troops sprayed gas and fired into the air to disperse the crowds after people scaled the walls and swarmed onto the tarmac. Gunfire could be heard in the voice messages she sent to The Associated Press.
The U.S. Embassy has been evacuated and the American flag lowered, with diplomats relocating to the airport to aid with the evacuation. Other Western countries have also closed their missions and are flying out staff and nationals.
Read: Concerns over US terror threats rising as Taliban hold grow
By morning, Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority issued an advisory saying the “civilian side” of the airport had been “closed until further notice” and that the military controlled the airspace.
The speed of the Taliban offensive through the country appears to have stunned U.S. officials. Just days before the insurgents entered Kabul with little if any resistance, a U.S. military assessment predicted it could take months for the capital to fall.
The rout threatened to erase 20 years of Western efforts to remake Afghanistan that saw more than 3,500 U.S. and allied troops killed as well as tens of thousands of Afghans. The initial invasion drove the Taliban from power and scattered al-Qaida, which had planned the 9/11 attacks while being sheltered in Afghanistan. Many had hoped the Western-backed Afghan government would usher in a new era of peace and respect for human rights.
As the U.S. lost focus on Afghanistan during the Iraq war, the Taliban eventually regrouped. The militants captured much of the Afghan countryside in recent years and then swept into cities as U.S. forces prepared to withdraw ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline.
Under the Taliban, which ruled in accordance with a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, women were largely confined to their homes and suspected criminals faced amputation or public execution. The insurgents have sought to project greater moderation in recent years, but many Afghans remain skeptical.
Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted that fighters had been instructed not to enter any home without permission and to protect “life, property and honor.” The Taliban have also said they will stay out of the upscale diplomatic quarter housing the U.S. Embassy complex and the posh villas of U.S.-allied former warlords who have fled the country or gone into hiding.
Read: Biden team surprised by rapid Taliban gains in Afghanistan
“The Taliban is seeking to shape the narrative that their accession to power is legitimate — a message for both inside Afghanistan and beyond its borders,” the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor wrote.
“The speed of the Taliban’s final advance suggests less military dominance than effective political insurgency coupled with an incohesive Afghan political system and security force struggling with flagging morale.”
When the Taliban last seized Kabul in 1996, it had been heavily damaged in the civil war that broke out among rival warlords after the Soviet withdrawal seven years earlier. The city was then home to around a million people, most traveling on dusty roads by bicycle or aging taxi.
Today Kabul is a built-up city home to 5 million people where luxury vehicles and SUVs struggle to push through endemic traffic jams. Many of the younger Taliban fighters hail from rural areas without electricity or running water, and are getting their first glimpse of the modern city.
Australia sends jets to fly personnel from Kabul
The latest on Afghanistan:
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia is sending three transport and air-to-air refueling jets with 250 military personnel to repatriate more than 130 Australians and their families from Afghanistan, officials said on Monday.
Australia is also working to evacuate an undisclosed number of refugees, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement.
The support comes as the U.S. and other nations scramble to evacuate diplomats and Afghan employees and their families from Kabul. The Taliban a day earlier toppled the Western-backed government.
An Airbus A330 airliner modified for aerial refueling would support U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan later this week, Australia’s Defense Department said in a statement. Two C-17A Globemaster heavy transport aircraft would also be sent to the Middle East, the statement said.
Australia shut its Kabul embassy in May and withdrew the last of its troops from Afghanistan in June.
More than 39,000 Australian military personnel have served in Afghanistan since 2001, and 41 died there.
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LISBON, Portugal - Portugal’s defense minister says his country is prepared to take in 243 Afghans, and their families who worked with Portuguese forces stationed in the country.
Defense Minister João Gomes Cravinho said NATO is coordinating the evacuation of the Afghans because Portugal doesn’t have the military capacity to do so.
Read:Taliban seek to project calm as US speeds chaotic evacuation
He told public broadcaster RTP late Sunday he is not aware of any Portuguese citizens living in Afghanistan.
Portugal had a small detachment of fewer than 200 troops stationed at Kabul airport, as part of the NATO mission in the country. The last ones pulled out at the end of May.
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STOCKHOLM — Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said Monday that 19 embassy employees had been evacuated from Kabul to Doha, Qatar and they’ll eventually flown to Sweden.
Earlier Monday, Norway and Denmark said that the bulk of the embassy staff were out of Afghanistan.
Norway Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said for the sake of the Norwegians it was done overnight.
Denmark’s Defense Minister Trine Bramsen told Danish broadcaster DR that while most Danish diplomats had been evacuated, “there are still Danes,” and others in the country still to be flown out.
Challenges include being able to land at Kabul’s chaotic airport, he said. But there’s a struggle, too, to get people to the airport, “a very difficult operation,” Bramsen was quoted as saying.
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LONDON -- British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says the government is planning to fly out 1,500 more people from Afghanistan over the next two days.
The first flight carrying British nationals has landed in the U.K., he said Monday, as countries scrambled to evacuate their diplomats, Afghan employees and their families from the chaotic airport in Kabul.
Wallace expressed hope that the government will be able to evacuate around 1,000 people a day, including Afghan nationals who have helped British citizens.
He told the BBC that work is under way to “remove any bureaucratic barriers” to make sure people who pass screenings are able to be flown to the U.K.
He said the British government sent more than 600 troops over the weekend to Kabul to help secure the airport and “to effectively process, manage and escort people onto our flights to get them out of Afghanistan.”
Wallace said one of the “biggest regrets” with the speed of the collapse of the Afghan government is that the timetable to remove Afghans and British people from the nation by Aug, 31 has had to be shortened.
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Read:Concerns over US terror threats rising as Taliban hold grow