Chaos at Kabul airport as dozens clamour for space on military planes
Panic at the Kabul airlift: Thousands of Afghans gather at closed airport which is now guarded by US troops – as fighting breaks out between people desperate to get out while non-military flights are grounded
Hopeful passengers gathered on Kabul Airport’s runway to escape from Afghanistan Concerned westerners were seen inside the airport as news came that the country’s president had left Residents reported gunfire in the area of the airport, the main point of evacuations out of Afghanistan
Hopeful passengers gathered on Kabul Airport’s runway to escape from Afghanistan – as the Taliban entered the presidential palace today.
Concerned westerners were seen inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport as news came that the country’s president had left, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing jihadists.
Residents reported sporadic gunfire in the area of the airport, the main point of evacuations out of Afghanistan, as U.S. troops aided the departure of U.S. personnel after the Taliban entered the Afghan capital.
‘There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place,’ the U.S. embassy said in a security alert.
A NATO official said all commercial flights had been suspended and only military aircraft were allowed to operate. The alliance said it was helping to keep the airport running.
Heavily armed Taliban fighters fanned out across the capital, and several entered Kabul’s abandoned presidential palace. Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman and negotiator, said that the militants would hold talks in the coming days aimed at forming an ‘open, inclusive Islamic government.’
But he refused to guarantee that Afghans would be allowed to leave the country, telling the BBC: ‘We need all Afghans to stay’. He said Taliban forces would not attack NATO teams overseeing evacuations, but said aid organisations and foreign embassies should stay, saying ‘We won’t hurt them’.
Boris Johnson has vowed to get as many as possible of the Afghans who worked with the UK out of the country as the Taliban stood poised to take control of the capital Kabul.
A NATO official said all commercial flights had been suspended and only military aircraft were allowed to operate. The alliance said it was helping to keep the airport running (pictured: Scenes at Kabul airport)
Harrowing pictures show people waiting near Kabul Airport’s runway to escape from the country’s capital – as the Taliban entered the presidential palace
Pictured: Chaotic scenes at Kabul airport as Taliban insurgents enter Kabul amid a withdrawal of western forces
Images show Kabul Airport descending into chaos as the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan continues
Scenes from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul are pictured above
Pictured: Scenes at the airport in Kabul as the Taliban enter Afghanistan’s capital
With President Ashraf Ghani fled, and insurgent fighters surrounding the capital, the Prime Minister said the situation was ‘extremely difficult’.
After chairing a meeting of the Government’s Cobra contingencies committee he said the UK was determined to work with allies to prevent the country again becoming a ‘breeding ground for terror’.
Britain has sent 600 troops – including Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade – to assist in the operation.
Meanwhile other Western countries were scrambling to get their people out, with helicopters shuttling from the US embassy to the airport while smoke was seen coming from the embassy rooftop as diplomats burned sensitive material.
Two sources familiar with the situation at the airport could not confirm the reports of firing there, amid an exodus of Americans, their local allies and other foreigners.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said earlier on Sunday that U.S. embassy staff were ferried by helicopter from the diplomatic compound to the airport, about 5 km (3 miles) away on the northeastern side of the city.
A US Chinook helicopter flies over the city of Kabul as diplomatic vehicles leave the compound after the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital
‘We’re working to make sure that our personnel are safe and secure. We’re relocating the men and women of our embassy to a location at the airport,’ Blinken told ABC news.
Asked if the evacuation was evocative of the U.S. departure from Vietnam in 1975, he said: ‘Let’s take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon.’
Sources told Reuters that most U.S. staff were expected to be evacuated from Kabul in the coming day or two.
A NATO official said all commercial flights had been suspended and only military aircraft were allowed to operate. The alliance said it was helping to keep the airport running.
France and Germany, members of NATO, said on Sunday they were moving their diplomats to the airport and sending military transport planes to Kabul to evacuate their citizens and their Afghan helpers.
A U.S. intelligence assessment earlier in the week had said Kabul could be encircled in 30 days and could fall to the Taliban within 90 days, but the insurgents captured most of Afghanistan’s major cities in less than a week and entered the capital on Sunday.
Some 4,200 people remained in the U.S. embassy until Thursday, when the Taliban’s rapid gains forced the Biden administration to begin flying in thousands of troops to help pull out many of the remaining diplomats.
The Taliban standing on a roadside in Kandahar after taking over more parts of Afghanistan. The scale and speed of the Taliban advance has shocked Afghans and the US-led alliance that poured billions into the country
UK military personnel boarding an RAF Voyager aircraft at RAF Brize Norton on August 14, 2021 to travel to Afghanistan
People wait at the airport in Kabul as the Taliban roll back into the country’s capital
Taliban are seen inside the presidential palace in Kabul amid a withdrawal of western forces
The deployment included an additional 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, who President Joe Biden said on Saturday would help evacuate citizens and ensure an ‘orderly and safe’ drawdown of U.S. military personnel.
On Sunday, U.S. officials said they were weighing whether more troops were needed. Another 3,000 are on standby in Kuwait.
Washington invested billions of dollars over four U.S. administrations in Afghan government forces, giving them advantages over the Taliban, but they were unable to defend the country in the face of the militants’ advance, Blinken told CNN.
The United States’ original mission in Afghanistan, launched to oust al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been fulfilled, Blinken said, saying Washington had prevented further attacks by militants harbored by the Taliban.
But Biden has faced rising domestic criticism after sticking to the plan to withdraw, which was agreed under his Republican predecessor Donald Trump. On Saturday, Biden defended his decision, saying an ‘endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me’.
Republican lawmaker Michael McCaul said a Taliban takeover would revive the threat to the United States.
‘We are going to go back to a pre-9/11 state. A breeding ground for terrorism,’ he told CNN on Sunday.
Biden met with his national security team on Sunday by secure videoconference from the presidential retreat at Camp David to hear updates on evacuations and the security situation, a White House official said.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat like Biden, said at a news conference that the safety of U.S. personnel and of Afghans who supported the Americans should be Washington’s top concern.
‘Job number one is for us to bring back, first, all American personnel … But second, all of the brave Afghans who helped our military, they have to be provided an exit to come to America,’ Schumer said.
