KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan waited nervously on Saturday to see if the United States would fulfill President Joe Biden’s new promise to evacuate all Americans and all Afghans who aided the war effort. Meanwhile, the Taliban leader came to Kabul to talk to the group’s leadership to form a new government.
Time runs out before Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw most of the remaining U.S. troops, and the president on Friday night did not promise to extend it. It faces growing criticism as videos show pandemonium and occasional violence outside the airport and how vulnerable Afghans who fear retaliation from the Taliban send desperate pleas for not being left behind.
In a new security warning, the U.S. embassy on Saturday told citizens not to travel to Kabul airport without “individual instructions from a U.S. government representative,” citing possible security threats outside its doors .
Tens of thousands of Afghan and other translators, and their close relatives, are seeking the shocking evacuation of Afghanistan by the Taliban in just over a week. The fall of Kabul was the last chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who negotiated the religious movement’s peace deal with the United States by 2020, was in Kabul to meet with the group’s leadership, a Taliban official said in a statement. the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media. Baradar’s presence is significant because he has often held talks with former Afghan leaders such as former President Hamid Karzai.
Afghan officials familiar with the talks in the capital say the Taliban have said they will not make announcements about their government until August 31 for the withdrawal of troops.
Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, tweeted that he and Karzai met on Saturday with the Taliban’s interim governor in Kabul, who “assured us that he would do everything possible for the security of the people.” city.
Evacuations continued, although some outbound flights were far from full due to airport chaos, Taliban checkpoints and bureaucratic challenges.
After a delay at a transit facility in Qatar forced flights from Kabul International Airport to stop for several hours on Friday, the Gulf of Bahrain nation announced on Saturday that it would allow flights to use its facilities. traffic for evacuation. The UAE, for its part, said it would host up to 5,000 Afghans “before leaving for other countries.”
On Friday, a defense official said about 5,700 people, including about 250 Americans, left Kabul aboard 16 C-17 transport planes, guarded by a temporary U.S. military deployment of 6,000. cash. In each of the previous two days, about 2,000 people were flown.
Officials also confirmed that U.S. military helicopters flew past Kabul airport to pick up 169 Americans they wanted to evacuate. No one knows how many U.S. citizens remain in Afghanistan, but estimates have reached 15,000.
So far, 13 countries have agreed to host at-risk Afghans at least temporarily, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Twelve others have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others. About 300 evacuees arrived Friday night from Qatar at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, a transit point for people who were transferred to the U.S., the U.S. military said.
“We are tired. We are happy. We are now in a safe country,” an Afghan man said when he arrived in Italy with 79 fellow citizens, speaking in a video distributed by the country’s defense ministry.
But the growing question for many other Afghans is: where will they finally call home? European leaders are already signaling fears that the 2015 migration crisis will be repeated that fleeing Afghans who did not help Western forces during the war should stay in neighboring countries. The desperate scenes of people clinging to planes taking off from Kabul airport have only deepened Europe’s anxiety.
Staying in Afghanistan means adapting to life under the Taliban, who say they seek an “inclusive and Islamic” government, offer a full amnesty to those who worked for the United States and the government backed by the Taliban. west and claim to have become more moderate since their last celebration. power from 1996 to 2001. They say they will respect women’s rights within the rules of Islamic law, without going into depth.
But many Afghans fear a return to the harsh Taliban rule in the late 1990s, when the group banned women from attending school or working outside the home, banned television and music, cut off the hands of alleged thieves and he made public executions.
“Today some of my friends went to work in court and the Taliban did not let them into their offices. They showed their weapons and said, “You have no right to work in this government if you worked in the past,” a women activist in Kabul told The Associated Press on Saturday. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
With a Turkish visa but no way to get to the airport safely, the activist described the gap between the Taliban’s words and actions as “alarming”. She said she was buried in the city with a companion, eating food delivered to her by a friend.
Now the Taliban are operating in a very different Afghanistan, this time facing a much closer examination while Afghans share updates on social media. However, some Afghans fear retaliation and instead end their online presence.
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Faiez reported from Istanbul, Gannon from Islamabad, Pakistan and Anna from Nairobi, Kenya. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, UAE, Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, Matt Lee in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin collaborated.
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Afghanistan coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/afghanistan