Warsaw, Poland (AP) – Poland has ended its evacuations from Afghanistan, but other European nations promised on Wednesday that they will continue as long as possible, as the clock pushes a dramatic airlift of people fleeing the Taliban government before ‘a total withdrawal from the United States.
President Joe Biden said he will meet his deadline on Aug. 31 for having completed the withdrawal from the United States, as the Taliban insisted, increasing pressure on the already risky operation to get the people out of Kabul.
European allies pressed for longer, but lost the discussion and, as a practical matter, may be forced to end their evacuations before the last American troops leave. Several countries have not yet said so when they plan to end their operations, perhaps in hopes of avoiding another fatal explosion at an airport, one of the country’s latest departures.
The Taliban withdrew control of Afghanistan nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaeda orchestrated while protected by the group. His return to power has pushed many Afghans to flee, for fear of reprisals or a return to the brutal rule they imposed when they last ruled the country.
It is believed that thousands of people are still trying to leave and it is not clear that all can do so before the end of the month. But any decision by Biden to stay longer could rekindle fighting between the Taliban and Western troops leading the airlift.
“Due to the extreme tension on the ground … and the expected departure of American forces, these evacuations are a real race against time,” French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday. He said the evacuation of his country would probably end “a few hours, maybe a few days before” the US exit.
The Taliban said they would allow normal commercial air traffic to resume when they take control of the airport after Aug. 31, but it is unclear whether the airlines would be willing to fly to a militant-controlled airport.
With the deadline set, Marcin Przydacz, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, said on Wednesday that Poland had evacuated its last group after consulting with US and British officials.
“After a lengthy analysis of reports on the security situation, we can no longer risk the lives of our diplomats and our soldiers,” Przydacz said.
Several troops will remain briefly to end operations, Przydacz said. Poland has used more than a dozen planes to carry hundreds of evacuees to Warsaw. Some later traveled to other countries.
The Czech Republic declared the end of its own evacuation mission last week and Hungary said it plans to end its operations soon.
The White House said on Wednesday about 19,000 people had been evacuated from Kabul in the past 24 hours. He said the U.S. has evacuated or facilitated the evacuation of some 82,300 people since the Taliban took control in mid-August.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the military “will continue to evacuate the necessary populations to the end.” But he added that in the last days and hours there must be a balance, as the 5,400 troops in Kabul and critical systems must also be withdrawn.
In Kabul itself, life has been slow to return to normal, but many people, especially women, remain inside, fearful of the Taliban or general instability.
Kabul Mayor Dawood Sultanzoy said many workers in the city have not yet returned to work, with the absence of experienced staff hampering normal operations. But he said the city has begun removing the explosive walls that have become ubiquitous in recent years as the Taliban and other armed groups carried out bombings and other attacks on the Western-backed government.
The Taliban say the decades of war are over and there will be no retaliatory attacks against those who oppose it. But many Afghans distrust the group and there have been reports of summary executions and other abuses in areas under Taliban control. Many fear a return to the Taliban’s harsh Islamic line of the 1990s, when women were largely confined to their homes.
The chaos at Kabul airport has shaken the world after the Taliban captured most of Afghanistan in a matter of days this month. Afghans dumped asphalt last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as he took off, he then rushed to his death. At least seven people died that day and another seven died on Sunday in a panic attack.
Thousands of days have crowded the airport in recent days, and the United States and its allies have worked to speed up evacuation, sometimes flying people before their paperwork is fully processed and taking them to transit points. On Wednesday, a group of 51 people landed in Uganda, which became the first African nation to serve as a transit point.
European nations, including the American allies Germany and the United Kingdom, had pressed for a longer window to continue evacuations. Still, Biden has remained on the date of August, even after an online emergency summit of the group of seven countries.
This left European nations with no choice but to meet the deadline.
“That the general deployment is literally maintained and falls with the stance of the alliance’s strongest military member, the US, has always been clear to us,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech to parliament.
“We will continue the evacuation operation for as long as possible,” he added, without specifying when the operations would end.
At the moment, the U.S. military is coordinating all air traffic in and out of Kabul airport. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted that “people with legal documents” will be able to leave Kabul airport on commercial flights after the August deadline.
On Wednesday, a series of military planes left the airfield as the evacuees lined up on the tarmac. The desperate remained outside, some standing on their knees in the sewage and waving IDs at the Western soldiers in hopes that they would be allowed to go beyond the barbed wire fences and fly off.
Although the final withdrawal date is just under a week away, analyst Patricia Lewis said the deadline to stop evacuations was “the next two days.”
“A lot of things have to be done, including the departure of all the people who do the work and all the equipment,” said Lewis, who is the director of the international security program at Chatham House, a group of international reflection.
“All allies are highly dependent on the U.S. for military coverage, especially air cover,” Lewis said. “They can’t put their own people at risk, so it depends on when the United States starts packing.”
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This story has been updated to correct that the maximum withdrawal period is less than one week and not one week.
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, UAE, Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul, Jill Lawless in London, Karel Janicek in Prague, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
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More AP coverage from Afghanistan: https://apnews.com/hub/afghanistan