(Reuters) – A large explosion was heard in Kabul late on Thursday as the U.S. military destroyed ammunition, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday.
Two witnesses in an area some 3-4 kilometers from the airport said earlier they had heard a huge explosion, hours after an Islamic State suicide attack killed dozens of people trying to board evacuation flights.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Leslie Adler)
(Reuters) – The United States and allies urged Afghans to leave Kabul airport on Thursday, citing the threat of an attack by Islamic State militants, as Western troops race to evacuate as many people as possible and get out themselves by Aug. 31.
The looming deadline has intensified pressure to complete the evacuations of tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans who helped Western countries during the 20-year war against the Taliban.
Shots were fired by unknown gunmen at an Italian military plane as it flew out of Kabul on Thursday, an Italian defense source said. It was undamaged.
An Italian journalist on the flight told Sky 24 TG that the plane had been carrying almost 100 Afghan civilians when it came under fire minutes after take-off.
Canadian forces halted their evacuations of around 3,700 Canadian and Afghan citizens on Thursday, saying they had stayed as long as they could. U.S. and allied troops also have to plan the logistics of their own withdrawal.
“We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone,” acting chief of the defense staff General Wayne Eyre told reporters.
In an alert on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul advised citizens to avoid travelling to the airport and said those already at the gates should leave immediately, citing unspecified “security threats”.
In another advisory, Britain told people to move away from the airport area. Its armed forces minister, James Heappey, said intelligence about a possible suicide bomb attack by IS militants had become “much firmer”.
“The threat is credible, it is imminent, it is lethal. We wouldn’t be saying this if we weren’t genuinely concerned about offering Islamic State a target that is just unimaginable,” Heappey told BBC radio.
A Western diplomat in Kabul said areas outside the airport gates were “incredibly crowded” again despite the warnings.
Australia also issued a warning for people to stay away from the airport while Belgium ended its evacuation operations because of the danger of an attack.
The Netherlands said it expected to carry out its last evacuation flight on Thursday. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said this was the most dangerous phase of the evacuation process.
The warnings came against a chaotic backdrop in Kabul, where the massive airlift of foreign nationals and their families as well as some Afghans has been under way since the day before the Taliban captured the city on Aug. 15, capping a lightning advance across the country as U.S. and allied troops withdrew.
‘RISKING LIVES’
The Taliban, whose fighters are guarding the perimeter outside the airport, are enemies of the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region.
“Our guards are also risking their lives at Kabul airport, they face a threat too from the Islamic State group,” said a Taliban official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Fighters claiming allegiance to ISIS-K first began appearing in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 2014 but the ultra-radical Sunni movement soon expanded from the area near the border with Pakistan where it first appeared.
Daesh, as it is widely known in Afghanistan, established a reputation for extreme brutality as it fought the Taliban both for ideological reasons and for control of local smuggling and narcotics routes, according to Western intelligence services.
It also claimed a series of suicide attacks in cities like Kabul, where as well as government and civilian institutions, it particularly attacked targets associated with the Shi’ite religious minority.
In Kabul, Ahmedullah Rafiqzai, a civil aviation official at the airport, said people continued to crowd around the gates despite the attack warnings.
“People don’t want to move, it’s their determination to leave this country that they are not scared to even die,” he told Reuters.
A NATO country diplomat said threats from Islamic State could not be ignored.
“Western forces, under no circumstances, want to be in a position to launch an offensive or a defensive attack against anyone,” the diplomat added.
The U.S. military has said it would shift its focus to evacuating its troops in the final two days before the deadline..
President Joe Biden has ordered all troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the month to comply with a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, despite European allies saying they needed more time.
Since the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul, the United States and its allies have mounted one of the biggest air evacuations in history, bringing out about 95,700 people, including 13,400 on Wednesday, the White House said on Thursday.
The U.S. military says planes are taking off the equivalent of every 39 minutes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at least 4,500 American citizens and their families had been evacuated from Afghanistan since mid-August.
The Taliban have said foreign troops must be out by the end of the month. They have encouraged Afghans to stay, while saying those with permission to leave will still be allowed to do so once commercial flights resume.
The Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule was marked by public executions and the curtailment of basic freedoms. Women were barred from school or work. The group was overthrown two decades ago by U.S.-led forces for hosting the al Qaeda militants who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The Taliban have said they will respect human rights and will not allow terrorists to operate from the country.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Stephen Coates, Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Simon Cameron-Moore and Frances Kerry)
(Reuters) – Hundreds of Afghan families who have been camping in searing heat at a Kabul park after the Taliban overran their provinces begged for food and shelter on Thursday, the most visible face of a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the war-torn country.
The Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan this month, culminating in the capture of Kabul on Aug. 15, has thrown the country into turmoil.
While thousands of people have crowded the airport to try to flee, many others, like the families in the park, are stuck in limbo, unsure whether it is safer to try to go home or stay where they are.
“I’m in a bad situation,” said Zahida Bibi, a housewife, sitting under the blazing sun with her large family. “My head hurts. I feel very bad, there is nothing in my stomach.”
Ahmed Waseem, displaced from northern Afghanistan said those in the park were hoping the central government would pay attention. “We are in an open field and in the heat,” he said.
Afghanistan’s western-backed president and many other officials fled after government forces melted away in the face of the Taliban advance. The group has placed its members in ministries and ordered some officials back to work, but services are yet to resume, with banks still closed.
Phalwan Sameer, also from northern Afghanistan, said his family came to Kabul after the situation rapidly deteriorated in his home town.
“There (was) a lot of fighting and bombing as well. That’s why we came here. The houses were burned and we became homeless,” he said.
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it has only enough medical supplies in Afghanistan to last a week after deliveries were blocked by restrictions at Kabul airport and the U.N. World Food Program said the country urgently needed $200 million in food aid.
The United Nations says more than 18 million people – over half of Afghanistan’s population – require aid and half of all Afghan children under the age of five already suffer from acute malnutrition amid the second drought in four years.
The Taliban have assured the U.N. that it can pursue humanitarian work as foreign governments weigh the issue of whether and how to support the population under hardline Islamist rule.
(Reporting by Reuters TV; writing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A new flight carrying evacuated at-risk Afghans will arrive in the United States later on Monday from Ramstein air base in Germany, a senior State Department official said, adding that the pace of flights will ramp up from transit hubs temporarily housing those evacuated from Kabul.
Speaking at a briefing with reporters, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were currently eight transit hubs across six countries that were hosting more than 17,000 people.
“The transit hubs that we have arranged in Germany, Italy and Spain will have the combined capacity to process approximately 15,000 people on a rolling basis, which in turn will enable us to keep evacuating people continuously from Kabul,” the official said.
“Today the first onward flight of SIV applicants took off from Germany to the United States and we expect those to continue to ramp up,” the official added, in reference to the Special Immigrant Visa, designed for issuing visas to people who worked with the U.S. military.
The Taliban seized power just over a week ago as the United States and its allies were withdrawing troops after a 20-year war launched in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants in 2001.
Panicked Afghans and foreigners have thronged the airport for days, clamoring to catch a flight out before the U.S.-led forces complete their pullout by the end of the month.
The official said the U.S. commitment to at-risk Afghans would not end on Aug. 31, but did not elaborate on how Washington could continue its efforts to airlift people if it withdraws completely from the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said that the United States expects to evacuate between 50,000 and 65,000 people from Afghanistan. That is fewer than the number eligible for safe harbor, according to estimates by advocates.
The official also dismissed reports that only Americans were able to get through to Kabul airport and that others had been blocked.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Holmes)
By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The desperate plea was sent via text message from one refugee advocate to another trying to aid frantic evacuations from Afghanistan: “Just got a call for a young mom with her two young kids,” it said, “She got through Taliban but being turned away by U.S. forces.”
The Afghan woman, a U.S. permanent resident who was in Afghanistan to visit family, and her U.S. citizen children were hoping to board a flight from Kabul to rejoin her husband in North Carolina on Thursday following the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country.
It was her second attempt to leave Afghanistan after she and her small children were trampled in a stampede triggered by gunfire near the airport on Wednesday, advocates and the woman’s husband said in interviews, requesting anonymity for her safety.
Thousands of miles away in the United States, Jenny Yang from the refugee resettlement agency World Relief had so far been unable to reach U.S. authorities.
Yang’s last resort was a text message to Chris Purdy, a U.S. military veteran and project manager with the advocacy organization Human Rights First, hoping he could use personal government contacts to get her out.
Then they lost contact with the woman and her children.
The frenzied text messages are just one tactic in a sprawling improvised effort by current and former officials, military veterans, congressional staff members and advocacy groups across the United States to get vulnerable people out of Afghanistan, often without clear guidance from the U.S. government. Many are Afghans who worked with the U.S. military in the 20-year war and fear the Taliban will hunt them down.
Desperation on the ground has been exacerbated by a lack of coordination between U.S. military forces controlling the airport perimeter and the State Department, which is notifying U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans about departure flights.
A State Department spokesperson said they are processing Afghans entering the airport as fast as possible, but that “congestion levels are high.” The spokesperson said they could not confirm details of specific incidents.
After being injured in the first melee, the woman returned only to faint from a grueling seven-hour wait outside the airport gates. When she came to, she re-established contact with her husband and is now at home waiting for another opportunity to flee.
“Some of the most desperate people are going to be stuck, and will continue to be stuck, unless the State Department figures out a way to get this mess under control,” Yang said.
New York-based Human Rights First has collected tens of thousands of names of people in Afghanistan who may need to be evacuated. The group shares the list with the State Department.
While it remains unclear exactly how the U.S. government uses the information, some people on the list have boarded planes, Purdy said.
The network of people trying to aid the evacuation has shared tips to pass through Taliban checkpoints. Wear traditional clothing, keep eyes down and persist. “You have to try many, many times,” reads one tip sheet. “Be patient.”
One Afghan man disguised himself in a burka, a traditional female robe, to get through Taliban checkpoints as he traveled hundreds of miles to reach the airport in Kabul, Purdy said.
Democratic Representative Jason Crow, a former U.S. Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, told Reuters that the Taliban have been using files from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency to round up Afghans who worked for the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said that the United States expected to evacuate between 50,000 and 65,000 people from Afghanistan. That is fewer than the number eligible for safe harbor, according to estimates by advocates.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that in August roughly 12,000 American citizens, U.S. Embassy personnel, Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants and others have been evacuated.
GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN
U.S. defense contractors are also working to get their current and former employees out of Afghanistan, with mixed results.
Abdul Noori, 29, arrived in the United States six years ago with SIV status because of his work as an interpreter for the U.S. military, he said. Last month, his older brother followed. But a third brother, who worked for a U.S. security contractor, had his visa interview scheduled for next week canceled as U.S. Embassy staff evacuated.
Stuck in Afghanistan, Noori’s brother sent screenshots of emails from his employer telling him to stay in a safe location. A senior manager wrote he was “doing everything in my absolute power” to get Afghan employees to the United States. The company confirmed the emails but asked not to be named due to security concerns.
Noori was not impressed with the effort. “If you want to help, get them papers, get them a visa,” he said.
No One Left Behind, a charitable organization that for years has helped relocate at-risk Afghans, has emerged as a central node in the growing informal network striving to evacuate people from Kabul. The group has raised more than $2.5 million for charter flights through a GoFundMe campaign, said James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind.
But Human Rights First said the U.S. government was not allowing charter flights out of Kabul.
Some in Congress are also working to get U.S. citizens and others out of Afghanistan, fielding requests from constituents and trying to coordinate with U.S. agencies to arrange flights.
“What’s abundantly clear is in the last week the evacuation has not gone the way that it should,” Crow, the U.S. lawmaker, said.
Crow, whose office fielded over 1,000 evacuation requests in the past four days, said people were emailing and texting passport photos and visa information to him. Informal chat groups shared details like which airport gates were open.
“We’re doing everything we can to help on the ground,” he said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Jonathan Landay in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg, Cynthia Osterman and Daniel Wallis)
KABUL (Reuters) -More than 18,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital, a NATO official said on Friday, pledging to redouble evacuation efforts as criticism of the West’s handling of the crisis intensified.
Thousands of people, desperate to flee the country, were still thronging the airport, the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters, even though the Taliban have urged people without legal travel documents to go home.
The speed with which the Islamist militant Taliban conquered Afghanistan as U.S. and other foreign troops were completing their withdrawal surprised even their own leaders and has left power vacuums in many places.
The Taliban called for unity ahead of Friday prayers, the first since they seized power, calling on imams to persuade people not to leave Afghanistan amid the chaos at the airport, protests and reports of violence.
Residents in Kabul and four other major cities said prayers appeared to have passed off with incident, though attendance was low.
A witness told Reuters several people were killed in the eastern city of Asadabad on Thursday when Taliban militants fired on a crowd demonstrating their allegiance to the vanquished Afghan republic, as the Taliban set about establishing an emirate, governed by strict Islamic law.
There were similar shows of defiance in two other cities – Jalalabad and Khost – in the east, with Afghans using celebrations of the nation’s 1919 independence from British control to vent their anger with the Taliban takeover.
Another witness reported gunshots near a rally in Kabul, but they appeared to be Taliban firing into the air.
A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Kabul has been largely calm, except in and around the airport where 12 people have been killed since Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview with NBC News that the United States was “laser-focused” on “the potential for a terrorist attack” by a group such as Islamic State during the evacuation.
BLAME
Criticism of NATO and other Western powers has risen as images of the chaos and desperate fear of Taliban rule were shared around the world.
In one scene captured on social media, a small girl was hoisted over the airport’s perimeter wall and handed to a U.S. soldier.
U.S. President Joe Biden was set to speak about the evacuation efforts at 1 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Friday, having faced a torrent of criticism for his handling of the troop withdrawal, negotiated by the previous U.S. administration.
Biden is brushing off criticism of his administration’s chaotic Afghan pull-out because he and his aides believe the political fall-out at home will be limited, according to White House allies and administration officials.
Media in Britain reported its spy chiefs may face a grilling over intelligence failings. Several British officials remained on holiday as the Afghan debacle erupted, and Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has been fiercely criticized for his initial response to the unfolding crisis.
The governments of Germany and Australia have also faced calls to do more and speed up the evacuation of citizens and Afghans who fear possible Taliban retribution.
On Thursday, G7 foreign ministers called for a united international response to prevent the crisis from worsening, in comments echoed by countries including Russia.
China said the world should support, not pressure, Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman told Chinese state media that China has played a constructive role in promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and was welcome to contribute to its rebuilding.
FEAR OF REPRISALS
Since seizing Kabul on Sunday, the Taliban, who ruled with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001 before being toppled by U.S.-led forces for sheltering al Qaeda militants behind the Sept. 11 attacks, have presented a more moderate face this time round.
They said this week they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
As the Taliban work to set up a government, including talks with a former president, Hamid Karzai, they are discovering new problems including hundreds of government officials who have not been paid for two months, a Taliban official said.
“It’s too early to say how this problem will be solved but it’s an immediate challenge,” the official said.
A Norwegian intelligence group said in a report the Taliban had begun rounding up Afghans on a blacklist of people linked to the previous administration or to U.S.-led forces that supported it. Complaints by some Afghan journalists have cast doubt on assurances that independent media would be allowed.
Amnesty International said an investigation found the Taliban had murdered nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of Ghazni province last month, raising fears that the Taliban, whose members are Sunni Muslims, will target Hazaras, who mostly belong to the Shi’ite minority.
A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the reports.
A U.S. lawmaker said the Taliban were using files from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency to identify Afghans who worked for the United States.
“They are methodically ramping up efforts to round those folks up,” said Representative Jason Crow, who has been leading efforts in the U.S. Congress to accelerate the evacuation of American-affiliated Afghans.
(Reporting by Kabul and Washington newsrooms; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Mark Heinrich)
KABUL (Reuters) – Protests against the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan spread to more cities on Thursday, including the capital Kabul, and a witness said several people were killed when the militants fired on a crowd in Asadabad in the eastern province of Kunar.
“Our flag, our identity,” a crowd of men and women waving black, red and green national flags shouted in Kabul, a video posted on social media showed, on the day Afghanistan celebrates independence from British control in 1919.
A witness reported gunshots near the rally, but they appeared to be Taliban firing into the air.
Marchers chanted “God is greatest.” At some protests elsewhere, media have reported people tearing down the white flag of the Taliban.
A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Some demonstrations are small, but combined with a scramble by thousands of people to flee the country via Kabul airport they underline the challenge the Taliban will face to govern.
The Islamist movement conquered Afghanistan at lightning speed as foreign troops withdrew, surprising even its leaders and leaving them to fill power vacuums in many places.
Since seizing Kabul on Sunday, the Taliban have presented a more moderate face, saying they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
During their previous rule from 1996-2001, they severely restricted women’s rights, staged public executions and blew up ancient Buddhist statues.
In Asadabad, several people were killed during a rally, but it was unclear if the casualties resulted from Taliban firing or from a stampede that it triggered.
“Hundreds of people came out on the streets,” witness Mohammed Salim said. “At first I was scared and didn’t want to go but when I saw one of my neighbors joined in, I took out the flag I have at home.
“Several people were killed and injured in the stampede and firing by the Taliban.”
Protests flared in the city of Jalalabad and a district of Paktia province, also both in the east.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters fired at protesters waving flags in Jalalabad, killing three, witnesses and media reported.
“Salute those who carry the national flag and thus stand for dignity of the nation,” First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who is trying to rally opposition to the Taliban, said on Twitter.
Saleh said on Tuesday he was the “legitimate caretaker president” in Afghanistan after President Ashraf Ghani fled.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, based in an old anti-Taliban stronghold northeast of Kabul, called for Western support.
“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,” wrote Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a veteran guerrilla leader killed by suspected al Qaeda militants in 2001.
Other former Afghan leaders, including ex-president Hamid Karzai, have held talks with the Taliban.
U.S. President Joe Biden said the Taliban must decide if they want international recognition.
“I think they’re going through a sort of existential crisis about: Do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government? I’m not sure they do,” Biden said in TV interview.
AIRPORT CHAOS
Kabul has been generally calm, but 12 people have been killed in and around the airport amid chaotic scenes, a NATO and a Taliban official said. The deaths were caused either by gun shots or stampedes, according to the Taliban official.
In one incident captured on social media, a small girl was hoisted over the airport’s high perimeter wall and handed to a U.S. soldier, underlining the desperation many people feel.
Gunmen fired into the air on Thursday at several entrances, scattering crowds including women clutching babies. It was not clear if the men firing were Taliban or security staff helping U.S. forces inside the airport.
The Taliban are “keeping their word” by providing foreign powers with support in evacuating their nationals, a Taliban official said.
“We are facilitating safe exit passage not just for foreigners but also to Afghans,” the official told Reuters.
U.N. agencies and international aid groups appealed for $800 million more in humanitarian funding.
About 8,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since Sunday, a Western security official said.
Under a pact negotiated by former President Donald Trump’s administration, the United States agreed to withdraw its forces in exchange for a Taliban guarantee they would not let Afghanistan be used to launch terrorist attacks.
The Taliban also agreed not to attack foreign forces as they leave.
Biden said U.S. forces would remain until all Americans were evacuated, even if that meant staying past an Aug. 31 U.S. deadline for withdrawal.
(Reporting by Kabul and Washington newsrooms; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Jane Merriman, Nick Macfie, Mike Collett-White and Catherine Evans)
By Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – About a month ago, Afghanistan’s ministry of defense posted on social media photographs of seven brand new helicopters arriving in Kabul delivered by the United States.
“They’ll continue to see a steady drumbeat of that kind of support, going forward,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters a few days later at the Pentagon.
In a matter of weeks, however, the Taliban had seized most of the country, as well as any weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.
Video showed the advancing insurgents inspecting long lines of vehicles and opening crates of new firearms, communications gear and even military drones.
“Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now,” one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Current and former U.S. officials say there is concern those weapons could be used to kill civilians, be seized by other militant groups such as Islamic State to attack U.S.-interests in the region, or even potentially be handed over to adversaries including China and Russia.
President Joe Biden’s administration is so concerned about the weapons that it is considering a number of options to pursue.
The officials said launching airstrikes against the larger equipment, such as helicopters, has not been ruled out, but there is concern that would antagonize the Taliban at a time the United States’ main goal is evacuating people.
Another official said that while there are no definitive numbers yet, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.
“We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with U.S.-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces. This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies,” Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in an email.
‘MORE LIKE TROPHIES’
The speed with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan is reminiscent of Islamic State militants taking weapons from U.S.-supplied Iraqi forces who offered little resistance in 2014.
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.
But aircraft like the Blackhawk helicopters have been the most visible sign of U.S. military assistance, and were supposed to be the Afghan military’ biggest advantage over the Taliban.
Between 2003 and 2016 the United States provided Afghan forces with 208 aircraft, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In the last week, many of those aircraft were most useful for Afghan pilots to escape the Taliban.
One of the U.S. officials said that between 40 and 50 aircraft had been flown to Uzbekistan by Afghan pilots seeking refuge. Even before taking power in Kabul over the weekend, the Taliban had started a campaign of assassinating pilots https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-pilots-assassinated-by-taliban-us-withdraws-2021-07-09.
Some planes were in the United States for maintenance and will stay. Those en route to Afghan forces will instead be used by the U.S. military to help in the evacuation from Kabul.
Current and former officials say that while they are concerned about the Taliban having access to the helicopters, the aircraft require frequent maintenance and many are complicated to fly without extensive training.
“Ironically, the fact that our equipment breaks down so often is a life-saver here,” a third official said.
Retired U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversaw U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019, said most of the high-end hardware captured by the Taliban, including the aircraft, was not equipped with sensitive U.S. technology.
“In some cases, some of these will be more like trophies,” Votel said.
FIGHTING AT NIGHT
There is a more immediate concern about some of the easier- to-use weapons and equipment, such as night-vision goggles.
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
“The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer,” one congressional aide told Reuters.
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do – including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.
Andrew Small, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the Taliban was likely to grant Beijing access to any U.S. weapons they may now have control over.
One of the U.S. officials said it was not likely China would gain much, because Beijing likely already has access to the weapons and equipment.
The situation, experts say, shows the United States needs a better way to monitor equipment it gives to allies. It could have done much more to ensure those supplies to Afghan forces were closely monitored and inventoried, said Justine Fleischner of UK-based Conflict Armament Research.
“But the time has passed for these efforts to have any impact in Afghanistan,” Fleischner said.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle and Jonathan Landay; Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis)
(Reuters) – Armed Taliban members knocked on doors in cities across Afghanistan on Wednesday, witnesses said, telling fearful residents to return to their jobs a day after the militants announced they wanted to revive the country’s battered economy.
Widespread destruction during a 20-year war between U.S.-backed government forces and the Taliban, the drop in local spending due to departing foreign troops, a tumbling currency and lack of dollars are fueling economic crisis in the country.
In their first press conference since seizing the capital Kabul, the Taliban on Tuesday promised peace, prosperity, and appeared to depart from previous rules of banning women from work. But many people remain wary.
Wasima, 38, said she was shocked when three Taliban members with guns visited her home in the western city of Herat on Wednesday morning. They took down her details, enquired about her job at an aid organization and her salary and told her to resume working, she said.
A dozen people told Reuters there had been unannounced visits from the Taliban in the past 24 hours, from the capital Kabul to Lashkar Gah in the south and northern Mazar-i-Sharif.
They did not wish to give their full names, for fear of reprisals.
As well as encouraging people to work, some said they also felt the checks were designed to intimidate and instill fear of the new leadership.
A Taliban spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the visits.
Many businesses in the capital Kabul remain closed and large parts of the city have been deserted since the Taliban captured it on Sunday at the end of a lightning sweep across the country.
The only major traffic in the usually congested capital was at the airport, where people are trying to flee the country aboard diplomatic evacuation flights, residents said.
Seventeen people were injured in a stampede there on Wednesday, and the Taliban said they fired in the air to disperse crowds.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Islamist movement was seeking good relations with other countries to allow economic revival and “prosperity to come out of this crisis.”
But some are skeptical of the Taliban, who during their previous rule from 1996-2001 dictated that women could not work and girls were not allowed to attend school, and imposed punishments such as public stoning.
Presenter Shabnam Dawran said in a video shared on Twitter on Wednesday that she was turned away from her job on Afghanistan’s state-owned Radio Television Afghanistan.
“They told me that the regime has changed. You are not allowed, go home,” she said.
The Taliban and the news organization did not immediately comment on the incident.
Wasima, who watched the Taliban’s news briefing with her two daughters, said she feared that opportunities for women would diminish under the Taliban, even if they were now urging her back to work.
“The Taliban say women should work but I know for a fact that opportunities will shrink,” she said.
(Reporting by Kabul newsroom and Rupam Jain; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
KABUL (Reuters) -The Taliban held their first official news conference in Kabul on Tuesday since the shock seizure of the city, declaring they wanted peaceful relations with other countries and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
“We don’t want any internal or external enemies,” the movement’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said.
Mujahid said women would be allowed to work and study and “will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam.”
The Taliban would not seek retribution against former soldiers and members of the Western-backed government, he said, saying the movement was granting an amnesty for former Afghan government soldiers as well as contractors and translators who worked for international forces.
“Nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors,” he said.
He said private media could continue to be free and independent in Afghanistan, adding the Taliban was committed to the media within its cultural framework.
Mujahid’s conciliatory tone contrasted sharply with comments by Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who declared himself the “legitimate caretaker president” and vowed that he would not bow to Kabul’s new rulers.
The Taliban news conference came as the United States and Western allies evacuated diplomats and civilians the day after scenes of chaos at Kabul airport as Afghans desperate to flee the Taliban thronged to the terminal.
As they rush to evacuate diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan, foreign powers are assessing how to respond to the changed situation on the ground.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the Taliban should allow all those who wanted to leave the country to depart, adding that NATO’s aim was to help build a viable state in Afghanistan.
There has been widespread criticism of the U.S. withdrawal amid the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said “the images of despair at Kabul airport shame the political West.”
Under a U.S. troops withdrawal pact struck last year, the Taliban agreed not to attack foreign forces as they leave.
FLIGHTS RESUME
U.S. military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan restarted on Tuesday after the runway at Kabul airport was cleared of thousands desperate to flee.
U.S. forces took charge of the airport – their only way to fly out of Afghanistan – on Sunday, as the militants wound up a week of rapid advances by taking over Kabul without a fight, 20 years after they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion.
The number of civilians had thinned out, a Western security official at the airport told Reuters. On Monday U.S. troops had fired warning shots to disperse crowds and people clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it taxied for take-off.
At least 12 military flights had taken off, a diplomat at the airport said. Planes were due to arrive from countries including Australia and Poland to pick up their nationals and Afghan colleagues.
President Joe Biden said he had to decide between asking U.S. forces to fight endlessly or follow through on a withdrawal agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said. “After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”
Facing criticism from even his own diplomats, he blamed the Taliban’s takeover on Afghan political leaders who fled and its army’s unwillingness to fight.
(Reporting by Kabul and other bureaus; Writing by Jane Wardell, Robert Birsel and Jane Merriman; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jon Boyle)
