MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan – An Afghan employee of a US organization in Afghanistan says the Taliban are blocking her and hundreds of others from embarking on charter evacuation flights outside Afghanistan.
The woman spoke anonymously on Tuesday with The Associated Press and said she feared for her safety if the Taliban pointed her out.
The American organization Ascend has worked for years with Afghan women and girls. The woman is among several hundred people, including U.S. citizens and green card holders, who say they have been waiting more than a week for large residences and hotels for permission to board charter flights from the United States. city of Mazar-e -Sharif.
“We think we’re in some kind of prison,” the woman told the AP.
He says the American citizens he has met in the group are vulnerable people in their 70s, parents of Afghan Afghans in the United States.
Taliban officials say they will let go of people who have the right passport and documentation. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday denied claims by Republican lawmakers that the situation in Mazar-e-Sharif amounted to a hostage-taking, after the U.S. government withdrew its last troops from the country last week. and diplomats.
The Afghan woman who spoke to AP says her group has proper passports and visas, but the Taliban are preventing them from entering the airport. She says she fled with the women of her hotel last week when news broke that the Taliban were looking for possible evacuees and had taken some.
“I’m scared if they divide us and don’t let us go,” he said. “If we can’t get out of here, something bad will happen. And I’m scared. “
– By Ellen Knickmeyer in Oklahoma City
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MORE ON AFGHANISTAN:
– Taliban fire in the air to disperse protesters, arrest journalists
– Databases built in the United States a potential tool of Taliban repression
– Blinken in Austin visit the Gulf to address postwar tensions
– The Taliban say they took Panjshir, last Afghan province
– More than 24 hours in Kabul, brutality, trauma, moments of grace
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– Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/afghanistan
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HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS MOST:
KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban fired shots to disperse a rally in Kabul on Tuesday and arrested several Afghan journalists covering the rally, Afghan witnesses and media said.
The protest began in front of the Pakistani embassy in the Afghan capital to denounce what protesters denounce as Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan, especially Islamabad’s alleged support for the latest Taliban offensive that defeated the fighters anti-Taliban in Panjshir province.
Posts on social media demanded the release of the arrested journalists.
An Afghan journalist who was among the detainees and who was later released told The Associated Press that the Taliban had punished. “They made me rub my nose on the floor and apologize for covering up the protest,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fears for his safety. “Journalism in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly difficult,” he added.
Afghan television channel TOLOnews said his camera Wahid Ahmadi was one of the detainees.
Since it took control of Afghanistan last month, there have been reports of Taliban beating and threatening journalists. In a known case, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said Taliban fighters who went door-to-door on the hunt for one of its journalists shot dead a member of his family and seriously injured another.
– By Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul
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KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans with valid visas and passports stranded in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and hoping to take charter evacuation flights out of the country will be able to leave, a Taliban official at the international airport said on Tuesday from the city.
Mawlawi Hafiz Mansour said most Afghans hoping to take one of the four evacuation flights do not have valid visas or passports. The Taliban have said they would only be allowed to leave Afghans with a valid passport and visas.
Mansour did not provide a breakdown of the numbers of those who had valid documents and those who did not.
Speaking in Qatar, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said the Taliban have given safe passage guarantees to anyone who wants to leave Afghanistan with the appropriate travel documents. He said the United States would keep the Taliban in that promise.
The United States is under pressure to help Americans and green card holders get out of Afghanistan and has pledged to work with the Taliban to do so.
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SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea’s foreign ministry says Seoul is ready to work with a new Taliban-led Afghan government if it follows “the international convention, respects basic human rights and refuses to provide refuge to terrorism “.
Ministry spokesman Choi Young-sam spoke at a briefing on Tuesday, addressing comments from Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who in an interview with South Korean broadcaster SBS called on Seoul to reopen its embassy. in Kabul, saying the safety of South Korean diplomats was assured.
“The (Seoul) government will closely monitor changes in Afghanistan’s internal political situation and coordinate closely with the international community to respond to the issue,” Choi said.
South Korea closed its embassy in Kabul last month and sent two military planes to evacuate about 400 Afghans, including those who had worked for the embassy and other facilities run by South Korea and their families. .
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DOHA, Qatar – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the State Department is working with the Taliban to facilitate additional charter flights from Kabul to people who want to leave Afghanistan after departure American diplomacy and military.
Blinken was speaking at a joint news conference on Tuesday with top Qatari diplomats and defense officials. He said the United States has been in contact with the Taliban “in the last hours” to work out arrangements for additional charter flights from the Afghan capital.
Blinken said the Taliban have given guarantees of safe passage to all who want to leave Afghanistan with the proper travel documents. He said the United States would keep the Taliban in that promise.
Blinken said the United States believes there are “about 100” American citizens still in Afghanistan who want to leave. The State Department had previously set this estimate at between 100 and 200.
Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are in Qatar to thank the Arab Gulf state for its help in the transit of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of Kabul on 15 August.
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DOHA, Qatar – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the Biden administration will work with Persian Gulf allies on diplomatic approaches to security threats in the region, including what he called the support of Iran to extremists.
Austin spoke at a press conference with senior Qatari officials in Doha, where he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken thanked Qatar for collaborating with the transit of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Afghanistan.
Austin said Iran supplies “increasingly lethal weapons” to what it called terrorist groups.
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ISTANBUL – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday called for an inclusive government in Afghanistan, which would also include women, and indicated to the Taliban that it would be a precondition for any international recognition.
In an interview with NTV, Cavusoglu did not directly answer the question of whether Turkey would recognize a Taliban administration. “If unity is wanted in the country, a government that includes everyone must be established,” he said.
“We want women to be in the established government as well,” she added. “We will act according to conditions and evolution.”
The minister said Turkey was working with the United States and Qatar to get Kabul airport back in operation, without detailing it. He said 19 Turkish technicians were currently working there.
Technical experts from Qatar and Turkey have begun repairs, although it is unclear when the airport will be up and running. The Taliban have said only domestic flights have resumed and, for the time being, all day long.
Cavusoglu said that for the airport to operate again, the Taliban can secure the airport from the outside, “but we need a structure that the international community can trust.”
Turkey has offered to provide security at the airport, but the Taliban have so far refused.
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BOSTON – For two decades, the United States and its allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating databases for the Afghan people. The noble goal: To promote law and order and government accountability and modernize a war-torn land.
But in the Taliban’s seizure of power, most of these digital devices, including biometrics to verify identities, apparently fell into the hands of the Taliban. Built with few guarantees of data protection, you run the risk of becoming the high-tech buttons of a surveillance state. As the Taliban stand up, there are concerns that they will be used for social control and to punish perceived enemies.
Putting this data into operation constructively (empowering education, empowering women, fighting corruption) requires democratic stability, and these systems were not designed for the prospect of defeat.
“It’s a terrible irony,” said Frank Pasquale, a surveillance technology scholar at Brooklyn Law School. “It’s a real object lesson in ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.'”
Since the fall of Kabul on August 15, there have been indications that government data may have been used in Taliban efforts to identify and intimidate Afghans working with U.S. forces.