WASHINGTON (AP) – Evacuation flights have resumed for Westerners, but thousands of at-risk Afghans who had helped the United States remain stranded in their homeland with the U.S. embassy closed, all the missing American diplomats and troops and the Taliban now at the helm.
With the United States and the Taliban insisting on travel documents that may no longer be available in Afghanistan, the plight of these Afghans is testing President Joe Biden’s promises not to leave American allies behind.
On Thursday, a Qabul-led evacuation flight from Kabul to the Gulf and the first of its kind since the U.S.-led military evacuations ended on August 30, focused on passport holders. and green cards from the United States and other foreigners.
For U.S. lawmakers, veteran groups, and other Americans who have been struggling to get former U.S. military and other Afghan interpreters at risk on charter flights, the relaunch of evacuation flights did little to calm the fears that the US could abandon countless Afghan allies.
Of particular concern are those special U.S. immigrant visas, intended for Afghans who helped Americans during the 20-year war, were still in the works when the Taliban took Kabul in a lightning offensive on 15 August. The United States abandoned its embassy building. same weekend.
“To all intents and purposes, the chances of these people escaping the Taliban ended the day we left them behind,” said Afghanistan war veteran Matt Zeller, founder of No One Left Behind. He is among dozens of grassroots American groups working to get Afghan translators and others who supported Americans.
An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan during the commercial flight from Kabul on Thursday with Taliban cooperation. Ten U.S. citizens and 11 green card holders made the flight Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Americans organizing charter evacuation flights said they knew more passport and green card holders in the United States in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere waiting for the flights.
In the United States, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said Thursday’s escape was the result of “careful and tough diplomacy and commitment” and said the Taliban “have shown flexibility and have been business and professional in our relations with them in this effort. ”
But many doubt the Taliban are so complacent for the Afghans who supported the United States. In Mazar-e-Sharif, a more than week-long clash over charter planes at the airport has left hundreds of people, mostly Afghans, but some with American passports and green letters: stranded, waiting for permission from the Taliban to leave .
Afghans and their U.S. supporters say the Taliban are blocking all Mazar-e-Sharif passengers from embarking on waiting charter flights, including those with proper travel documents.
Zeller signaled the Taliban’s appointment this week for a hard-line government. It includes Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s most wanted list with a $ 5 million reward for alleged assaults and kidnappings, as interior minister, a position he was tasked with granting passports.
The Trump administration failed to approve special visas for Afghan immigrants, or SIVs, in recent months. The Biden administration was also criticized for not moving faster in evacuating Afghans before Kabul fell to the Taliban.
The U.S. had also required some visa applicants to leave the country to file an application, a requirement that became much more dangerous with the Taliban’s acquisition last month.
“There are all these important logistical hurdles,” said Betsy Fisher of the International Refugee Assistance Project, which provides legal services to SIV applicants. “How will the people of Afghanistan come out?”
He said without a clear plan in place, the U.S. government could end up encouraging people to take risky trips.
In July, after Biden welcomed home the first airlift, he made it clear that the U.S. would help even those Afghans with pending visa applications leave Afghanistan “so they can safely wait until the sun ends. Visa applications “.
However, since the military airlift ended on August 30, the Biden administration and the Taliban have stressed that Afghans needed passports and visas. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday that the administration was studying steps like electronic visas.
Hundreds of Afghans who say they are in danger of Taliban retaliation have gathered for more than a week in Mazar-e-Sharif, awaiting permission to board evacuation flights chartered by U.S. supporters.
Among them was an Afghan who worked for 15 years as a U.S. military interpreter. He has moved from hotel to hotel in Mazar-e-Sharif and has run out of money while he, his eight children and his wife wait for the Taliban’s OK to leave.
“I’m scared to be left behind,” said the man, whose name was withheld by The Associated Press for his safety. “I don’t know what the problem is, is it a political issue or do they not care?”
The interpreter’s visa was approved weeks before the last U.S. troops left the country, but he could not get it stamped in his passport because the U.S. embassy closed it.
He said on Thursday that he does not trust the Taliban’s guarantees that they will not take revenge on the Afghans who worked for the Americans.
Biden, already criticized for his management of the evacuation, is being pushed by Democrats and also by both sides by Republicans, with some saying it is not enough to help the former American allies and others not doing enough. to avoid possible threats outside the country. WE
Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Mike Waltz, both Republicans, said in a statement that hundreds of these Afghans and at-risk U.S. residents remain “trapped behind enemy lines.” The Biden administration “must provide Congress and the American people … with a plan to get them out of Afghanistan safely.”
The Association of War Time Allies estimates that tens of thousands of special immigrant visa applicants remain in Afghanistan.
A U.S. citizen in New York is trying to get two cousins out of the country who applied for SIV late last year and were still awaiting approval when he closed the U.S. embassy. He said both cousins worked for eight years for a U.S. aid group and are afraid the Taliban will find them.
“They are afraid, they feel abandoned. They put their whole lives at risk, and when the United States came out, they were told they would come out, “said American Fahima, who retains her last name and the group’s aid group to protect her cousins. “Where’s the helping hand?”
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Knickmeyer reported from Oklahoma City; Watson of San Diego and Condon of New York.