Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 27: Amidst international condemnation of suicide bombing attack outside the Kabul airport in which the death toll has crossed 100 including over 70 civilians, the evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed with new urgency on Friday as thousands of more desperate Afghans crowded the airport in an attempt to flee the Taliban-controlled country.
A day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover, the U.S. said further attempted attacks were expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America’s longest war.
Kabul residents said several flights took off Friday morning, while footage shared by a local Tolo TV correspondent showed the anxious crowd outside the airport as large as ever.
Thursday’s bombings near Kabul’s international airport killed at least 72 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said, in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since August 2011. In an emotional speech, President Joe Biden blamed the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, far more radical than the Taliban militants who seized power less than two weeks ago.
“We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on,” Biden said. But despite intense pressure to extend Tuesday’s deadline, he has cited the threat of terrorist attacks as a reason to keep to his plan.
The Taliban, back in control of Afghanistan two decades after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, insist on the deadline. The Trump administration in February 2020 struck an agreement with the Taliban that called for it to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for the removal of all U.S. troops and contractors by May; Biden announced in April he would have them out by September.
While the U.S. on Thursday said more than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated from Kabul, as many as 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Afghans are struggling to leave in one of history’s largest airlifts. Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief overseeing the evacuation, on Thursday said about 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield.
The scenes at the airport, with people standing knee-deep in sewage and families thrusting documents and even young children toward U.S. troops behind razor wire, have horrified many around the world as far-flung efforts continue to help people escape.
But those chances are fading fast for many. Some U.S. allies have said they were ending evacuation efforts, in part to give the U.S. time to wrap up its evacuation work before getting 5,000 of its troops out by Tuesday.
Britain said Friday its evacuations from Afghanistan would end within hours, and the main British processing center for eligible Afghans had been closed. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said there would be eight or nine evacuation flights on Friday and that would be the last. British troops would leave over the next few days. The Spanish government said it has ended its evacuation operation.
Untold thousands of Afghans, especially ones who had worked with the U.S. and other Western countries, are now in hiding from the Taliban, fearing retaliation despite the group’s offer of full amnesty. The militant group has claimed it had become more moderate since its harsh rule from 1996 to 2001, when it largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music and held public executions.
But Afghans in Kabul and elsewhere have reported that some Taliban members are barring girls from attending school and going door to door in search of people who had worked with Western forces reviving the general fear among the Afghans of the Taliban’s deadly face of the past.
Though the Taliban did not like the ISIS a branch of which has claimed responsibility for the Thursday’s suicide bombings, it was not clear how effective the Taliban would be at combating it.
Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport on Thursday evening transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover.
Pakistan is preparing to receive nearly 4,000 evacuees from Afghanistan, mostly Afghan nationals, as transiting passengers to stay for a limited period, officials said on Friday.
The US embassy had requested the Pakistan government to help in the evacuation efforts ahead of the August 31 deadline to completely withdraw from Afghanistan. Officials said that the Embassy sought permission for landing or transiting the passengers under three categories: US diplomats/citizens, Afghan nationals and people from other countries.
A number of countries including India, Russia, China, Spain, France, Saudi Arabia and many other nations condemned the Kabul bombings and expressed serious concern about the situation in Afghanistan.
India, while condemning the attacks outside Kabul airport said such incidents “reinforce the need for the world to stand unitedly against terrorism and all those who provide sanctuaries to terrorists.” In a statement late Thursday night, the external affairs ministry said, “India strongly condemns the bomb blasts in Kabul today. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims of this terrorist attack. Our thoughts and prayers also go out to the injured.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “Unfortunately, pessimistic forecasts are being confirmed that terrorist groups and organizations that have settled there, the Islamic State first and foremost, and its derivatives, would take advantage of the chaos that has arisen in Afghanistan,” Peskov told a conference call with reporters Friday. It “adds to the tensions in Afghanistan” and remains the cause of the Kremlin’s “serious concern,” Peskov said.
Saudi Arabia said it strongly condemned the Kabul airport attack and reaffirms that such criminal acts contradict religious principles and human values. The kingdom said on Thursday that it extends its deepest condolences to all those killed and wounded. The Saudi Foreign Ministry statement added that Saudi Arabia stands with the people of Afghanistan at this time.
China said it condemned the attacks on Kabul airport and was “ready to work with the international community to address the threat of terrorism and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a source of terrorism again.”
The comments from Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday afternoon were Beijing’s first comments on the suicide bombings. China has kept its embassy in Kabul open and recently hosted talks between the Taliban and its ambassador, while piling on criticism of the U.S. over the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport.
The U.S. President has vowed to complete the evacuation of American citizens and others from Afghanistan despite the deadly suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport. He promised to avenge the deaths of 13 U.S. service members killed in the attack, declaring to the extremists responsible: “We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Speaking with emotion from the White House, Biden said the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate was to blame for the Thursday attacks that killed the Americans and many more Afghan civilians. He said there was no evidence they colluded with the Taliban, who now control the country.
The last German civilian plane carrying Afghans fleeing Taliban rule landed in Frankfurt on Friday, a day after the country’s armed forces said they had finished their evacuation operation at Kabul airport. Germany said it had received assurances from the Taliban that Afghans with legal documents would be able to travel on commercial flights beyond the Aug. 31, when the last NATO troops will leave the country.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Afghanistan’s neighbours should support the formation a broad-based government in Kabul. Raisi spoke on Thursday during a meeting with visiting Pakistani foreign minister to Tehran, saying other nations should only play the role of a “facilitator for establishing a broad-based and inclusive government with presence of all people and groups.”
He said Iran has hosted some four million Afghan refugees in the past four decades and it has supported the people of Afghanistan. The presence of Western nations in the region would not be conducive to its “security,” he alleged.
The Taliban has asked Turkey to operate Kabul airport but no decision has been made yet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. “The Taliban have made a request for us to operate Kabul airport. We have not yet made a decision on this matter,” he said in a press conference. He added: “We will make a decision after the administration (in Afghanistan) is clear.” Mr. Erdogan said a meeting with the Taliban lasting more than three hours took place at the Turkish embassy in Kabul, without saying when the meeting took place.
France’s European Affairs Minister said France will end its evacuation operation in Kabul “soon” but may seek to extend it until after the night of August 27.
Clement Beaune said France would continue its operation at the moment in order “to evacuate as many people as possible.” French President Emmanuel Macron said France had identified “several hundred people,” including French nationals and a majority of Afghans, who remain to be evacuated.
Japan said it is pursuing efforts in Kabul to evacuate its citizens and local staff who worked for the Japanese embassy and development agencies, despite the deadly suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport.
While Spain, Italy and several other countries has warpped up their evacuation process, the Pakistani authorities are asking hotels in the capital, Islamabad, to stop taking reservations in order to make room for foreigners who are passing through after being evacuated from Afghanistan.
The overnight request asked hoteliers to halt new reservations for 21 days, giving priority to foreign guests with flights transiting via Islamabad. No current guests were to be affected.
Media reports from Kabul said hundreds of Afghan families who have been camping in searing heat at a Kabul park after the Taliban overran their provinces begged for food and shelter. While thousands of people have crowded the airport to try to flee, many others, like the families in the park, are stuck in a limbo, unsure whether it is safer to try to go home or stay where they are.
A Taliban spokesman said the group was not providing food to the people at the park and others at the airport because it would lead to further overcrowding. They should return to their homes, he said.
The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), an ISIS affiliate which has claimed the responsibility for the Thursday’s Kabul airport bombing, is an outfit that has built network in Afghanistan and killed hundreds.
In June 2015, a few months after the Islamic State (IS) announced its Wilayat Khorasan (Khorasan Province), the Taliban wrote a letter to the IS chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, asking him to stop recruiting jihadists in Afghanistan. The letter, signed by the then political committee chief of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour (who would take over the insurgency in a month and be killed by a U.S. air strike in May 2016), said there was room for “only one flag and one leadership” in the fight to re-establish Islamic rule in Afghanistan.
But the IS faction, did not stop recruiting disgruntled Taliban fighters. Nor did it stop launching terror attacks across Afghanistan.
In the past six years, the ISKP has built an organisational network in Afghanistan from the eastern Nangarhar province, attracted followers from across South, West and Central Asia, and killed hundreds. When the Islamic State announced the formation of the Khorasan Province, referring to an area encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, in January 2015, the group’s immediate strategy was to exploit the divisions within the main jihadist groups operating in the region.
It appointed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Hafiz Saeed Khan as its leader and former Afghan Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Aliza as his deputy (both were killed in U.S. strikes). It attracted members from different militant organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan into its fold.
The U.S. has carried out a number of targeted attacks, killing several of the ISKP’s leaders. But despite U.S.’s targeted bombings and the Taliban’s counter-attacks on the ground, the ISKP has continued to expand its operations. One of the key terms of the US – Taliban agreement was that the latter would not allow terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the IS to use Afghan soil. Unsurprisingly, the Taliban condemned the Kabul blasts and vowed to bring the culprits to justice. The Taliban offer themselves as a force that can stabilise Afghanistan and fight outfits such as the IS. The Kabul attack would allow them to strengthen this narrative. But the blasts are a warning of what’s awaiting Afghanistan.