Kabul: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan

Kabul - US plans to deploy flights until August 31 deadline

Taliban forces sealed off Kabul’s airport Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as the US and its allies were ending a chaotic airlift that will end their troops’ two decades in Afghanistan.

Western leaders acknowledged their withdrawal would mean leaving behind some of their citizens and many locals who helped them over the years, and they vowed to try to continue working with the Taliban to allow local allies to leave after President Joe Biden’s Tuesday’s deadline to withdraw from the country.

Although most of its allies had finished their evacuation flights, the US planned to keep its round-the-clock flights going until the deadline, saying 113,500 people had been evacuated since August 14, the day before the Taliban claimed Kabul. Biden warned Saturday that commanders had told him another attack was “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” and the US Embassy issued a new warning early Sunday for all Americans to avoid the airport area entirely.

Britain ended its evacuation flights Saturday, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to “shift heaven and earth” to get more of those at risk from the Taliban to Britain by other means.

Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, said in a video from Kabul airport and posted on Twitter that it was “time to close this phase of the operation now.”

“But we haven’t forgotten the people who still need to leave,” he said. “We’ll continue to do everything we can to help them. Nor have we forgotten the brave, decent people of Afghanistan. They deserve to live in peace and security.”

As the flow of planes leaving Kabul slowed, others arrived in locales around the world carrying Afghans who managed to secure places on the last evacuation flights, including in the Washington area, Philadelphia, Madrid, and Birmingham, England. Some passengers were relieved and looking forward to starting new lives far from the Taliban, but others were bitter about having to flee.

In Spain, Shabeer Ahmadi, a journalist targeted by the Taliban, said the United States had doomed the work he and others had put into making Afghanistan a better place by allowing the insurgent group to reclaim power.

“They abandoned the new generation of Afghanistan,” Ahmadi said.

An evacuation flight to Britain landed with an extra passenger after the cabin crew delivered a baby girl mid-air, Turkish media reported. The parents named her Havva, or Eve, and she was at least the fourth baby known to have been born to Afghan mothers who went into labour on evacuation flights.

Meanwhile, families of Afghans killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing at the airport by a Daesh group affiliate continued burying their dead — at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed. Among them was Belal Azfali, a 36-year-old contractor for a US-funded project who had gone to the airport on his own, without his wife. His remains were so disfigured that he could only be identified when someone picked up the family’s repeated calls to the cellphone he had with him, relatives said.

The US on Saturday released the names of the 13 Marines, Navy and Army personnel who were killed in the bombing. One of the Marines — recently promoted Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23 — was seen in a widely circulated photo cuddling an Afghan infant temporarily rescued from the crush of the crowds outside the airport gates this month.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed Saturday that the group’s forces were holding some positions within the airport and were ready to peacefully take control of it as American forces flew out. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denied the claim.

The Taliban did deploy extra forces outside of the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday’s bombing. New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. Areas, where the crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country, were largely empty.

Officials said US forces were taking every precaution at the airport, as there were concerns that Daesh, which is far more radical than the Taliban, could strike again. A new security alert from the US Embassy on Sunday morning said due to a “specific, credible threat”, all US citizens should avoid certain gates at the airport and avoid travelling to the area.

The US and its allies have said they will continue providing humanitarian aid through the UN and other partners, but any broader engagement — including development assistance — is likely to hinge on whether the Taliban deliver on their promises of more moderate rule.