Taliban
Taliban control now-quiet Kabul airport after US withdrawal
The Taliban were in full control of Kabul’s international airport on Tuesday, after the last U.S. plane left its runway, marking the end of America’s longest war.
Vehicles carrying the Taliban raced back and forth along the Hamid Karzai International Airport’s sole runway on the northern, military side of the airfield. Before dawn broke, heavily armed Taliban fighters walked through hangars, passing some of the seven CH-46 helicopters the State Department used in its evacuations before rendering them unflyable.
Taliban leaders later symbolically walked across the runway, marking their victory while flanked by fighters of the insurgents’ elite Badri unit.
“The world should have learned its lesson and this is the enjoyable moment of victory,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a livestream posted by a militant.
Mujahid also addressed the gathered members of the Badri unit. “I hope you be very cautious in dealing with the nation,” he said. “Our nation has suffered war and invasion and the people do not have more tolerance.”
Read:As US military leaves Kabul, many Americans, Afghans remain
At the end of his remarks, the Badri fighters shouted: “God is the greatest!”
Later speaking to Al-Jazeera Arabic on the tarmac, Mujahid rejected having a caretaker government and insisted that Kabul remained safe.
“There will be security in Kabul and people should not be concerned,” he said.
In another interview with Afghan state television, Mujahid also discussed restarting operations at the airport, which remains a key way out for those wanting to leave the country.
“Our technical team will be checking the technical and logistical needs of the airport,” he said. “If we are able to fix everything on our own, then we won’t need any help. If there is need for technical or logistics help to repair the destruction, then we might ask help from Qatar or Turkey.”
He didn’t elaborate on what was destroyed. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. military’s Central Command, earlier said troops “demilitarized” the system so it can never be used again. Officials said troops did not blow up equipment in order to ensure they left the airport workable for future flights, once those begin again. In addition, McKenzie said the U.S. also disabled 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft so they cannot be used again.
Taliban fighters draped their white flags over barriers at the airport as others guarded the civilian side of the airfield. Inside the terminal, several dozen suitcases and pieces of luggage were left strewn across the floor, apparently left behind in the chaos. Clothes and shoes also were scattered. A poster of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed anti-Taliban fighter, had been destroyed.
“Afghanistan is finally free,” said Hekmatullah Wasiq, another Taliban official. “The military and civilian side are with us and in control. Hopefully, we will be announcing our Cabinet. Everything is peaceful. Everything is safe.”
Wasiq also urged people to return to work and reiterated the Taliban pledge offering a general amnesty. “People have to be patient,” he said. “Slowly we will get everything back to normal. It will take time.”
The airport had seen chaotic and deadly scenes since the Taliban blitzed across Afghanistan and took Kabul on Aug. 15. Thousands of Afghans besieged the airport, some falling to their death after desperately hanging onto the side of an American C-17 military cargo jet. Last week, an Islamic State suicide attack at an airport gate killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
Read:Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war
But on Tuesday, after a night that saw the Taliban fire triumphantly into the air, guards now blearily on duty kept out the curious and those still somehow hoping to catch a flight out.
“After 20 years we have defeated the Americans,” said Mohammad Islam, a Taliban guard at the airport from Logar province, cradling a Kalashnikov rifle. “They have left and now our country is free.”
“It’s clear what we want. We want Shariah (Islamic law), peace and stability,” he added.
Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, similarly praised the takeover in an online video early Tuesday.
“Thank God all the occupiers have left our country completely,” he said, congratulating fighters by referring to them as mujahedeen, or holy warriors. “This victory was given to us by God. It was due to 20 years of sacrifice by the mujahedeen and its leaders. Many mujahedeen sacrificed their lives.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative who oversaw America’s talks with the Taliban, wrote on Twitter that “Afghans face a moment of decision & opportunity” after the withdrawal.
“Their country’s future is in their hands. They will choose their path in full sovereignty,” he wrote. “This is the chance to bring their war to an end as well.”
But the Taliban face what could be a series of major crises as they fully take over the government. The majority of the billions of dollars Afghanistan holds in foreign reserves is now frozen in America, pressuring its now-depreciating Afghani currency. Banks have implemented withdrawal controls, fearing runs on their deposits in the uncertainty. Civil servants across the country say they haven’t received their salary in months.
Medical equipment remains in short supply, while thousands who fled the Taliban’s advance remain living in squalid conditions. A major drought also has cut into the country’s food supplies, making its imports even more important and raising the risk of people going hungry.
Read:Afghanistan after US pullout: Qatar emerges as key player
During the evacuation, U.S. forces helped evacuate over 120,000 U.S. citizens, foreigners and Afghans, according to the White House, making it the largest airlift in the history of the American military. Coalition forces also evacuated their citizens and Afghans. But for all who got out, foreign nations and the U.S. acknowledged they didn’t evacuate all who wanted to go.
At the airport’s eastern gate, a handful of Afghans still tried their luck to get in, hoping for any flight. As of now, however, commercial airlines are not flying into the airport and it remains unclear who will take over managing the country’s airspace. On their way out, the U.S. military warned pilots the airport was “uncontrolled” and “no air traffic control or airport service are available.”
Several of those trying to come into the airport came from Kandahar province, the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan that saw some of the war’s fiercest fighting. One of the men, Hekmatullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name, carried paperwork he said showed he worked as a translator.
Hekmatullah said he had waited four days for an opportunity to leave.
“But now I don’t know what chances I have,” he said.
As US military leaves Kabul, many Americans, Afghans remain
As the final five U.S. military transport aircraft lifted off out of Afghanistan Monday, they left behind up to 200 Americans and thousands of desperate Afghans who couldn’t get out and now must rely on the Taliban to allow their departure.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. will continue to try to get Americans and Afghans out of the country, and will work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to secure their departure either over land or by charter flight once the Kabul airport reopens.
“We have no illusion that any of this will be easy, or rapid,” said Blinken, adding that the total number of Americans who are in Afghanistan and still want to leave may be closer to 100.
Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan.
Speaking shortly after the Pentagon announced the completion of the U.S. military pullout Monday, Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Kabul will remain shuttered and vacant for the foreseeable future. American diplomats, he said, will be based in Doha, Qatar.
“We will continue our relentless efforts to help Americans, foreign nationals and Afghans leave Afghanistan if they choose,” Blinken said in an address from the State Department. “Our commitment to them holds no deadline.”
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters the U.S. military was able to get as many as 1,500 Afghans out in the final hours of the American evacuation mission. But now it will be up to the State Department working with the Taliban to get any more people out.
McKenzie said there were no citizens left stranded at the airport and none were on the final few military flights out. He said the U.S. military maintained the ability to get Americans out right up until just before the end, but “none of them made it to the airport.”
“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” said McKenzie. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out that we wanted to get out.”
McKenzie and other officials painted a vivid picture of the final hours U.S. troops were on the ground, and the preparations they took to ensure that the Taliban and Islamic State group militants did not get functioning U.S. military weapons systems and other equipment.
The terror threat remains a major problem in Afghanistan, with at least 2,000 “hard core” members of the Islamic State group who remain in the country, including many released from prisons as the Taliban swept to control.
Underscoring the ongoing security threats, the weapon systems used just hours earlier to counter IS rockets launched toward the airport were kept operational until “the very last minute” as the final U.S. military aircraft flew out, officials said. One of the last things U.S. troops did was to make the so-called C-RAMS (Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System) inoperable.
McKenzie said they “demilitarized” the system so it can never be used again. Officials said troops did not blow up equipment in order to ensure they left the airport workable for future flights, once those begin again. In addition, McKenzie said the U.S. also disabled 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft so they can never be used again.
Throughout the day, as the final C-17 transport planes prepared to take off, McKenzie said the U.S. kept “overwhelming U.S. airpower overhead” to deal with potential IS threats.
Read: UK starts bringing troops home from Afghanistan
Back at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, watched the final 90 minutes of the military departure in real time from an operations center in the basement.
According to a U.S. official, they sat in hushed silence as they watched troops make last-minute runway checks, make the key defense systems inoperable and climb aboard the C-17s. The official said you could hear a pin drop as the last aircraft lifted off, and leaders around the room breathed sighs of relief. Later, Austin phoned Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was coordinating the evacuation. Donahue and acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson were the last to board the final plane that left Kabul.
Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of military operations.
“Simply because we have left, that doesn’t mean the opportunities for both Americans that are in Afghanistan that want to leave and Afghans who want to leave, they will not be denied that opportunity,” said McKenzie.
The military left some equipment for the Taliban in order to run the airport, including two firetrucks, some front-end loaders and aircraft staircases.
Blinken said the U.S. will work with Turkey and Qatar to help them get the Kabul airport up and running again.
“This would enable a small number of daily charter flights, which is a key for anyone who wants to depart from Afghanistan moving forward,” he said.
Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war
The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war.
Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport. Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants.
In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. He said a number of American citizens, likely numbering in “the very low hundreds,” were left behind, and that he believes they will still be able to leave the country.
Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan
Secretary of State Antony Blinken put the number of Americans left behind at under 200, “likely closer to 100,” and said the State Department would keep working to get them out. He praised the military-led evacuation as heroic and historic and said the U.S. diplomatic presence would shift to Doha, Qatar.
Biden said military commanders unanimously favored ending the airlift, not extending it. He said he asked Blinken to coordinate with international partners in holding the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who want to leave in the days ahead.
The airport had become a U.S.-controlled island, a last stand in a 20-year war that claimed more than 2,400 American lives.
The closing hours of the evacuation were marked by extraordinary drama. American troops faced the daunting task of getting final evacuees onto planes while also getting themselves and some of their equipment out, even as they monitored repeated threats — and at least two actual attacks — by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. A suicide bombing on Aug. 26 killed 13 American service members and some 169 Afghans.
The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania. His decision, announced in April, reflected a national weariness of the Afghanistan conflict. Now he faces criticism at home and abroad, not so much for ending the war as for his handling of a final evacuation that unfolded in chaos and raised doubts about U.S. credibility.
The U.S. war effort at times seemed to grind on with no endgame in mind, little hope for victory and minimal care by Congress for the way tens of billions of dollars were spent for two decades. The human cost piled up — tens of thousands of Americans injured in addition to the dead.
More than 1,100 troops from coalition countries and more than 100,000 Afghan forces and civilians died, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.
In Biden’s view the war could have ended 10 years ago with the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida extremist network planned and executed the 9/11 plot from an Afghanistan sanctuary. Al-Qaida has been vastly diminished, preventing it thus far from again attacking the United States.
Congressional committees, whose interest in the war waned over the years, are expected to hold public hearings on what went wrong in the final months of the U.S. withdrawal. Why, for example, did the administration not begin earlier the evacuation of American citizens as well as Afghans who had helped the U.S. war effort and felt vulnerable to retribution by the Taliban?
Read: UK starts bringing troops home from Afghanistan
It was not supposed to end this way. The administration’s plan, after declaring its intention to withdraw all combat troops, was to keep the U.S. Embassy in Kabul open, protected by a force of about 650 U.S. troops, including a contingent that would secure the airport along with partner countries. Washington planned to give the now-defunct Afghan government billions more to prop up its army.
Biden now faces doubts about his plan to prevent al-Qaida from regenerating in Afghanistan and of suppressing threats posed by other extremist groups such as the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. The Taliban are enemies of the Islamic State group but retain links to a diminished al-Qaida.
The final U.S. exit included the withdrawal of its diplomats, although the State Department has left open the possibility of resuming some level of diplomacy with the Taliban depending on how they conduct themselves in establishing a government and adhering to international pleas for the protection of human rights.
The speed with which the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15 caught the Biden administration by surprise. It forced the U.S. to empty its embassy and frantically accelerate an evacuation effort that featured an extraordinary airlift executed mainly by the U.S. Air Force, with American ground forces protecting the airfield. The airlift began in such chaos that a number of Afghans died on the airfield, including at least one who attempted to cling to the airframe of a C-17 transport plane as it sped down the runway.
By the evacuation’s conclusion, well over 100,000 people, mostly Afghans, had been flown to safety. The dangers of carrying out such a mission came into tragic focus last week when the suicide bomber struck outside an airport gate.
Speaking shortly after that attack, Biden stuck to his view that ending the war was the right move. He said it was past time for the United States to focus on threats emanating from elsewhere in the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “it was time to end a 20-year war.”
Read: Afghanistan after US pullout: Qatar emerges as key player
The war’s start was an echo of a promise President George W. Bush made while standing atop of the rubble in New York City three days after hijacked airliners slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
“The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” he declared through a bullhorn.
Less than a month later, on Oct. 7, Bush launched the war. The Taliban’s forces were overwhelmed and Kabul fell in a matter of weeks. A U.S.-installed government led by Hamid Karzai took over and bin Laden and his al-Qaida cohort escaped across the border into Pakistan.
The initial plan was to extinguish bin Laden’s al-Qaida, which had used Afghanistan as a staging base for its attack on the United States. The grander ambition was to fight a “Global War on Terrorism” based on the belief that military force could somehow defeat Islamic extremism. Afghanistan was but the first round of that fight. Bush chose to make Iraq the next, invading in 2003 and getting mired in an even deadlier conflict that made Afghanistan a secondary priority until Barack Obama assumed the White House in 2009 and later that year decided to escalate in Afghanistan.
Obama pushed U.S. troop levels to 100,000, but the war dragged on though bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
When Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017 he wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan but was persuaded not only to stay but to add several thousand U.S. troops and escalate attacks on the Taliban. Two years later his administration was looking for a deal with the Taliban, and in February 2020 the two sides signed an agreement that called for a complete U.S. withdrawal by May 2021. In exchange, the Taliban made a number of promises including a pledge not to attack U.S. troops.
Biden weighed advice from members of his national security team who argued for retaining the 2,500 troops who were in Afghanistan by the time he took office in January. But in mid-April he announced his decision to fully withdraw.
The Taliban pushed an offensive that by early August toppled key cities, including provincial capitals. The Afghan army largely collapsed, sometimes surrendering rather than taking a final stand, and shortly after President Ashraf Ghani fled the capital, the Taliban rolled into Kabul and assumed control on Aug. 15.
Some parts of the country modernized during the U.S. war years, and life for many Afghans, especially women and girls, improved measurably. But Afghanistan remains a tragedy, poor, unstable and with many of its people fearing a return to the brutality the country endured when the Taliban ruled from 1996 to 2001.
The U.S. failures were numerous. It degraded but never defeated the Taliban and ultimately failed to build an Afghan military that could hold off the insurgents, despite $83 billion in U.S. spending to train and equip the army.
Afghans killed outside airport were seeking new lives abroad
Mohammed Jan Sultani had clutched his national Taekwondo championship certificates as he waded through the multitudes pushing to get into Kabul airport late last week.
The 25-year-old athlete wasn’t on any evacuation lists. Yet he had hoped his achievements would make him and his young family special enough to be let into the gate and onto one of the flights rescuing foreigners and Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
As he forged ahead, an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated two dozen pounds of explosives in the crowd just before nightfall Thursday, killing 169 Afghans, including Sultani, and 13 U.S. service members.
His wife and two children, 4-year-old Zahid and 2-year-old Zahra, survived; he had told them to stay back a bit as he advanced toward the gate.
Read: How Instagram star helped rescue dozens from Afghanistan
Three days later, Zahid remains in shock. He cries, but doesn’t speak.
The athlete’s father, Ali, said his son had expected a bleak future under the Taliban.
“He didn’t know where he would go,” the bereaved man, who goes by the last name Rahmani, said Sunday. “The United States, Europe, it didn’t matter,” Rahmani said, holding some of his son’s medals, his voice laced with sadness.
“Everyone in the country seemed to be escaping,” he said.
Najma Sadeqi was also among those trying to get out that afternoon. The 20-year-old, who was in her last semester in journalism school, feared the Taliban’s return to power would bring a harsh version of Islamic rule in which women would largely be confined to their homes.
Getting through those airport gates held the promise of career somewhere else, far away from all the threats and judgement.
Read: Afghan official claims 3 children killed in US drone strike
Thursday’s blast killed Najma, as well as her brother and a cousin who had escorted her to the airport to ensure her safety.
Najma had gotten her start in journalism with a YouTube channel a few years back and eventually went to work for a couple of private broadcasters, said her older sister, Freshta.
In the two decades since the U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power, women have made gains in education, politics and business — but it hasn’t been easy. Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative country, especially outside urban areas. Many of Najma’s own relatives objected to her nascent career, with some even cutting off contact.
Freshta said her sister received threatening phone calls and text messages from unknown men who objected to her appearing in public.
“I was the only one she told about her security concerns,” Freshta said. “She didn’t want to share it with the family because they might prevent her from working with media.”
But as the Taliban rapidly advanced, capturing most of the country in a matter of days and rolling into the capital earlier this month, Najma decided to join the exodus, fearing that the takeover would spell the end of a career that was only just beginning. She compiled the threatening text messages and brought them to the airport, hoping they would help her convince the Americans to put her on a plane.
Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan
Najma planned to restart her YouTube channel from her new home — wherever that might be — and document the lives of Afghan migrants, Freshta said. “She dreamed of building a career in media despite the challenges she faced.”
Najma and tens of thousands of others outside the airport gate have not been swayed by Taliban promises to allow women in public life and girls to attend schools.
Ali Reza Ahmadi, a 34-year-old who had worked as a journalist for nearly a decade, was so desperate to get out that he went to the airport just months after getting engaged. He and his younger brother, who had hoped to travel with him, were both killed, according to Khadim Karimi, a close friend and colleague.
He said Ahmadi was already struggling with depression and financial problems before the Taliban swept in. “He was so distraught, so he decided to go to the airport and stay there until he could get an airlift from whatever country would take him,” Karimi said.
Rockets fired at Kabul airport amid US withdrawal hit homes
Rocket fire apparently targeting Kabul’s international airport struck a nearby neighborhood on Monday, the eve of the deadline for American troops to withdraw from the country’s longest war after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was hurt.
The rockets did not halt the steady stream of U.S. military C-17 cargo jets taking off and landing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Last week, the Islamic State group launched a devastating suicide bombing at one of the airport gates that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
Read: Afghan official claims 3 children killed in US drone strike
The airport repeatedly has been a scene of chaos in the two weeks since the Taliban blitz across Afghanistan that took control of the country, nearly 20 years after the initial U.S. invasion that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But since the suicide bombing, the Taliban have tightened their security cordon around the airfield, with their fighters seen just up to the last fencing separating them from the runway.
In the capital’s Chahr-e-Shaheed neighborhood, a crowd quickly gathered around the remains of a four-door sedan used by the attackers, which had what appeared to be six homemade rocket tubes mounted where the backseat should be. The Islamic State group and other militants routinely mount such tubes into vehicles and quietly transport them undetected close to a target.
“I was inside the house with my children and other family members, suddenly there were some blasts,” said Jaiuddin Khan, who lives nearby. “We jumped into the house compound and lay on the ground.”
The rockets landed across town in Kabul’s Salim Karwan neighborhood, striking residential apartment blocks, witnesses said. That neighborhood is some 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the airport. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
In Washington, the White House issued a statement saying officials briefed President Joe Biden on “the rocket attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport” in Kabul, apparently referring to the vehicle-based rocket launch that morning.
“The president was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground,” the statement said, using an acronym for Kabul’s airport.
The U.S. military did not respond to requests for comment. After the rocket fire, planes continued to land and taxi across to the northern military side of the airport. Planes took off roughly every 20 minutes at one point Monday morning.
Read:US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport
The airport had been one of the few ways out for foreigners and Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover. However, coalition nations have halted their evacuations in recent days, leaving the U.S. military largely alone at the base with some remaining allied Afghan forces providing security.
The U.S. State Department released a statement Sunday signed by around 100 countries, as well as NATO and the European Union, saying they had received “assurances” from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave the country.
The Taliban have said they will allow normal travel after the U.S. withdrawal is completed on Tuesday and they assume control of the airport. However, it remains unclear how the militants will run the airport and which commercial carriers will begin flying into the field given the ongoing security concerns there.
While the Taliban has honored a pledge not to attack Western forces so long as they evacuate by Tuesday, the threat from the Islamic State’s local affiliate remains a danger. The group, known as the Khorasan Province after a historic name for the region, saw some of its members freed as the Taliban released prisoners across the country during their takeover.
On Sunday, a U.S. drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying Islamic State suicide bombers before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul’s airport, American officials said. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike.
U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the American military’s Central Command, acknowledged the reports of civilian casualties.
“We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” he said in a statement.
Read:US airstrike targets Islamic State member in Afghanistan
The U.S. carried out another drone strike elsewhere in the country on Saturday that it said killed two Islamic State members.
By Tuesday, the U.S. is set to conclude a massive two-week-long airlift of more than 114,000 Afghans and foreigners and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America’s longest war with the Taliban back in power.
However, Afghans remain fearful of the Taliban returning to the oppressive rule for which it was once known. There have been sporadic reports of killings and other abuses in the sweep across the country.
How Instagram star helped rescue dozens from Afghanistan
Dozens of desperate Afghans who had been trying to flee the Taliban before Tuesday’s deadline for the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul made it to safety with help from an unexpected place: Instagram influencer Quentin Quarantino.
Quarantino is the alter ego of 25-year-old Tommy Marcus of New York City, previously best-known for his liberal memes and his jokes about opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations. Along with his followers, Quarantino raised $7 million within days on GoFundMe to launch rescue missions into Afghanistan to evacuate as many people as possible, many of whom said they had been threatened by the Taliban.
On Wednesday, their mission “Operation Flyaway” helped ferry 51 people from Afghanistan to Uganda on a privately chartered plane financed by the GoFundMe campaign.
More than 121,000 people had donated to the campaign after Marcus made an appeal to his 832,000 followers, making it one of the largest humanitarian fundraisers in GoFundMe’s history.
“It’s beyond humbling that they have that faith in me, that they’re willing to put significant amounts of money into hands that I trust,” Marcus told The Associated Press.
Read: Afghan official claims 3 children killed in US drone strike
Saraya International, a global development firm, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which both provided organizational support for the flight to Uganda, as well as another company involved with the evacuation, confirmed to the AP that the flight was chartered by the emergency collaboration financed through Marcus’ Go FundMe campaign.
“I don’t know what word to use besides miraculous, because it’s restored a faith in humanity,” Marcus said. “We’ve shed the political divisions in this situation and really come together from all walks of life to rally together and save these people because .. they don’t deserve what their future holds if they stay in Afghanistan right now.”
Those who were evacuated, Marcus said, were women, children, humanitarians and others “who’ve been fighting for the greater good in Afghanistan for a long time,” as well as their families. The organizers had said they were seeking to rescue 300 people who, along with their families, were “at imminent risk of being executed by the Taliban.”
The team had been met with skepticism from experts who questioned whether they had the capability to pull of such a mission at a time when governments, corporations and charity groups were rushing to get their citizens and employees out of Afghanistan on whatever aircraft they could.
Marcus’ group said more than 350 people have been rescued, with nearly 300 leaving Kabul on other chartered flights that “Operation Flyaway” reimbursed for providing safe passage from the country. A spokesperson for the State Department wrote in an emailed statement that the department appreciates “community-led efforts to support the Afghan relocation and resettlement process, which reflects the generosity of the American people and the international community.”
“However, we are unable to verify the authenticity or effectiveness of these efforts,” the statement said.
Officials from several nonprofit groups describe a chaotic and perilous scene at the Kabul airport as they rushed to fill private chartered flights with people who have the necessary paperwork in the limited time that they can keep their planes on the tarmac.
“I’m so proud of our extraordinary team and what we were able to accomplish in such a short time,” said Sayara CEO Scott Shadian. “I just wish we could’ve done more. Simply put, the institutions failed, and it breaks my heart how much more we could have accomplished. We are grateful we got out as many people as we did against the greatest odds we’ve ever faced.”
Read: Bangladesh observing Afghanistan situation, in touch with stranded citizens
At the request of the U.S. government, Uganda received the evacuees, who will stay at hotels in a city outside the country’s capital, Kampala. Ugandan officials said the nation would shelter up to 2,000 people who are expected to be relocated elsewhere after a temporary stay in the country.
The chartered flight that left Kabul early Wednesday morning is one of several private rescue efforts being organized by various groups, separately and through collaborations, to help Afghans flee. The flight from Kabul to Entebbe, Uganda, was organized by Sayara, which advised a company working with Marcus that it knew of a plane available for “Operation Flyaway.”
Representatives from that North Carolina-based company, Raven Advisory, said they were able to pay for the mission using money raised through Marcus’ GoFundMe campaign. The company, which says it performs subcontract work for the U.S. military, said “an all-volunteer team consisting of former Special Forces soldiers and other veterans with expertise in Afghanistan” were working with the military to coordinate their rescue efforts.
Sayara’s Shadian said he had met “Operation Flyaway” members on Zoom only earlier in the week and in the chaos of the Kabul evacuations was thrilled they agreed to fund the flight.
“They were one of many miracles we experienced in this time,” Shadian said. “Their last-minute funding, along with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Schmidt Futures and other donors, was critical. Without Operation Flyaway’s quick funding, that flight wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.”
Raven Advisory CEO Sheffield Ford told the AP that in order to transport the people into the airport, the U.S. government has to be “comfortable with our organization saying these people are OK, and that they have actually done things to help their country, to help our country.”
Though the deadly suicide bombing at the airport on Thursday complicated their efforts, Ford says those they are helping must have passports, a relative his group can communicate with and someone vouching for them who has passed a background check. The goal, Ford noted, is to ferry Afghan citizens that have been targeted by the Taliban out of the country.
“Our focus was the people who wanted to build their country into something great,” he said. “They thought they were going to stay there, with us backing them, for the long haul. It’s going be women that work in journalism and teachers. It could be the young people and older people who have been very outspoken against the different atrocities of committed by the Taliban in the past.”
Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan
Though crowdfunding has been a welcome tool to mobilize donations during crisis situations, Patricia McIlreavy, president of the Washington-based Center for Disaster Philanthropy, stresses that donors should be cautious when donating to private efforts through these sites.
“There’s not necessarily going to be a public report on where these funds went and how they were used, in the way that a nonprofit — or a 501(c)(3) — is required to by law,” she said.
Though rescue flights are now winding down with the pending deadline of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the GoFundMe campaign said it will donate whatever money remains to the Washington-based organization International Women’s Media Foundation. According to organizers, the foundation, which supports female journalists, will use the money to “partner with experienced organizations and experts to support people once they are on safe ground.”
Ford was impressed by how quickly millions were raised on GoFundMe for these missions.
“”It’s about people coming together to help others,” he said. “And it was awesome to see that happen.”
Afghan official claims 3 children killed in US drone strike
The U.S. military says a drone strike on a vehicle suspected of being used for a planned attack in Afghanistan may have caused “additional casualties” as well as killed the two Islamic State militants it targeted.
An Afghan official has said three children were killed in the strike near Kabul’s airport. Witnesses to the blast say several citizens were killed or wounded.
In a statement Sunday night, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, said U.S. officials were aware of the reports of civilian casualties and were still investigating. Urban said the strike disrupted an imminent threat on the Kabul airport but added: ”We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life.”
Read: US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport
Separately, a U.S. official said the drone fired a Hellfire missile at a vehicle in a compound between two buildings when individuals were seen loading explosives into the trunk.
The official said there was an initial explosion caused by the missile, followed by a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of explosives inside the vehicle. In his statement, Urban said those powerful subsequent explosions may have caused civilian casualties.
The U.S. believes that two Islamic State group individuals who were targeted were killed.
Read: US airstrike targets Islamic State member in Afghanistan
The officials said it appears that the secondary explosion did significant damage to one of the buildings next to the vehicle. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information about a military operation.
US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport
A U.S. drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate on Sunday before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul’s international airport, American officials said.
The strike came just two days before the U.S. is set to conclude a massive airlift of tens of thousands of Afghan and foreign civilians and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America’s longest war with the Taliban back in power.
The U.S. State Department released a statement signed by around 100 countries, as well as NATO and the European Union, saying they had received “assurances” from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave the country freely. The Taliban have said they will allow normal travel after the U.S. withdrawal is completed on Tuesday and they assume control of the airport.
At around the same time as the drone strike, Afghan police said a rocket hit a neighborhood near the airport, killing a child. Rashid, the Kabul police chief, who goes by one name, confirmed the rocket attack, and video obtained by The Associated Press showed smoke rising from a building around a kilometer (half a mile) from the airport.
The Taliban described the drone strike and the rocket attack as separate incidents, but residents of the Afghan capital heard only one large blast.
Two American military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, called the airstrike successful and said the vehicle carried multiple bombers.
U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a military spokesman, said the strike was carried out in “self-defense.” He said the military was investigating whether there were civilian casualties but that “we have no indications at this time.”
“We are confident we successfully hit the target,” Urban said. “Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.”
The strike came two days after an Islamic State suicide attack outside the airport killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. The U.S. carried out a drone strike elsewhere in the country on Saturday that it said killed two IS members.
President Joe Biden had vowed to keep up the airstrikes, saying Saturday that another attack was “highly likely.” The State Department called the threat “specific” and “credible.”
Read:Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan
Educators call on Taliban not to replace system
Former officials and lecturers at Afghanistan universities have called on the Taliban to maintain and upgrade the country’s education system instead of creating a new one.
Former minister of higher education Abas Basir said Sunday at a conference on higher education held by the Taliban that starting over is a mistake made by previous governments.
He says: “Lets not reject everything, starting a new system, we should work more on what we already have.”
Taliban caretaker higher education minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani criticized the current education system founded by the international community, saying that religious education was considered insignificant.
Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan
“World tried to take religion out of scientific education which harmed the people,” Haqqani said. He added that “every item against Islam in the educational system will be removed.”
The Taliban policy on women’s education was not clear but Tariq Kamal, chancellor of a private university, said women were very interested in some higher education fields and “we need the guidance of Taliban leadership on them.” Kamal spoke for private universities in Afghanistan.
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
LONDON — Military planes carrying British troops and diplomats from Kabul are landing at a U.K. air base after the U.K.’s two-week evacuation operation ended.
The U.K. ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, was among those who arrived Sunday at RAF Brize Norton northwest of London, hours after the government announced that all British personnel had left Kabul.
Britain says it has evacuated more than 15,000 U.K. citizens and vulnerable Afghans in the past two weeks but that as many as 1,100 Afghans who were entitled to come to the U.K. have been left behind.
Vice Adm. Ben Key, who was in charge of the British operation, said: “We tried our best.”
In a video message, Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “colossal” effort, saying it was “a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”
Read: Taliban takeover prompts fears of a resurgent al-Qaida
But he is facing strong criticism over the failure to bring to safety all those Afghans who helped British forces during the 20-year deployment in Afghanistan that began in the wake of 9/11.
Johnson acknowledged that Britain “would not have wished to leave in this way,” but said “we have to recognize that we came in with the United States, in defense and support of the U.S. and the U.S. military did the overwhelming bulk of the fighting.”
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TIRANA, Albania — Two more planes have brought Afghans fearing the Taliban to Albania, bringing the total number of evacuees to 457.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday the two planes landed at dawn with 154 and 28 Afghans, respectively. Most of them will be temporarily housed at a student campus in the capital Tirana, while others were sent directly to hotels.
Albania aims to shelter all the evacuees in hotels instead of camps to give them a sense of normalcy.
Albania was among the first countries to offer housing to Afghans who have worked with U.S. and NATO forces and others fearing revenge following the Taliban takeover.
The Afghans in Albania come from different backgrounds, including activists and university staff, and include children.
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MADRID — The U.S. Embassy in Spain says that a third flight sent by American forces to Spain has arrived at the Rota military base.
Read: Deadly gunfire at airport; Taliban insist on US pullout date
The flight arrived early Sunday with 220 evacuees from Afghanistan.
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KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. State Department is urging all Americans in the vicinity of the Afghanistan’s Kabul airport to leave the area immediately because of a specific, credible threat.
The warning early Sunday morning says U.S. citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid all airport gates at this time. It specifically noted the South (Airport Circle) gate, the new Ministry of the Interior, and the gate near the Panjshir Petrol station on the northwest side of the airport.
A suicide bombing at the airport on Thursday killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
Protect & evacuate all media personnel from Afghanistan, journo bodies urge G7
More than 50 civil society and journalists’ organisations, including ARTICLE 19, have urged the G7 countries to ensure the protection and subsequent evacuation of all media personnel from war-ravaged Afghanistan.
The group of leading industrial nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the USA and the European Union (EU) -- is preparing to hold an online summit on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
Read: Evacuation flights resume in Kabul after deadly bombings
Ahead of this summit, the rights bodies operating at the international level, in a joint letter, have asked the G7 countries to make a clear and explicit commitment to taking journalists as an urgent priority, ensure their protection and evacuate them and their families from Afghanistan.
Faruq Faisel, the Regional Director for ARTICLE 19 South Asia, in a separate statement said, “ARTICLE 19 expresses solidarity with Afghan citizens, millions of whom are now living in abject fear."
ARTICLE 19 is committed to working with partners to support journalists and media workers, human rights defenders and women’s rights activists, academics, writers, artists and educators, all of whom are at serious and immediate risk of targeted violence at the hands of the Taliban.
“G7 members must increase their current support for those journalists and media workers at risk... and pay particular attention to the situation of women with immediate priority.
Read: What's happening with Afghanistan evacuations?
"G7 governments must ease visa restrictions for these people and their families seeking asylum as well as simplify and secure the process for visa application, and collaborate with third countries when possible," Faisel said.
ARTICLE 19 also urged the international community to ensure the continuation of the negotiations for a government based on the participation of all parties in Afghanistan and hold the Taliban accountable to its responsibilities to respect international human rights law.