India Shuts Down Kabul Embassy, Evacuate all Stranded as Taliban Announce “General Amnesty” Asking Even Women Government Employees to “Return to Duty”
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 17: Amid escalating tensions in Afghanistan, India on Tuesday shut down its embassy in Kabul evacuating all the staff and others stranded even as the Taliban announced a “general amnesty” for all Afghans and asking the government employees, including women, to resume their duty and the Indian government offered a special category of “emergency e-visa” for all Afghan nationals wanting to come to India to escape Taliban.
A special Indian air force plane C-17 Globemaster, which had remained parked at the Kabul airport on Monday as the evacuees could not reach the airport due to curfew in the national capital imposed by the Taliban, returned with about 140 passengers, including the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan R Tandon, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) stationed for the protection of the embassy in Kabul, some journalists and about 20 others. The plane which took off from Kabul on Tuesday morning landed at the Jamnagar air force base in Gujarat around 11.30 A.M. for re-fuelling before resuming its onward journey to Delhi.
This is the second time since 1996 that India has evacuated its mission in Kabul — both times after the Taliban came to power. The announcement to close down the embassy and shift its entire staff back home came two days after Taliban entered the national capital and took control of the country. Kabul fell to the Taliban on Sunday completing their takeover of the country in a lightning offensive that saw provinces and warlords give up without a fight, days after the hasty withdrawal of US troops.
“The aircraft landed at around 11:30 AM and we went to the tarmac to welcome the evacuees with garlands. They are being taken to a facility for lunch even as the aircraft is being refueled,” Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Gujarat’s Minister of State for Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs said.
“The passengers, who were tense, looked relieved after landing in Jamnagar,” the Jamnagar district collector Sourabh Pardhi said.
This is the second evacuation flight. On Monday, another C-17 aircraft had evacuated around 40 people including some Indian embassy staff from Kabul before the operations at the airport in the city were suspended.
In Delhi, the union home ministry announcing the new category of e-visa to fast-track the applications of Afghans who want to come to India, said all Afghans, irrespective of their religion, can apply for the ‘e-Emergency X-Misc Visa’ online and the applications would be processed in New Delhi since the Indian missions in Afghanistan had been shut down.
“The MHA reviews visa provisions in view of the current situation in Afghanistan. A new category of electronic visa called ‘e-Emergency X-Misc Visa’ introduced to fast-track visa applications for entry into India,” a home ministry spokesman said.
The visa will initially be valid for six months, they said. Security issues would be looked into while processing the applications and granting the visa to Afghan nationals, the officials said.
Thousands of Afghans rushed into Kabul’s main airport on August 16, some so desperate to escape the Taliban that they held onto a military jet as it took off and plunged to their deaths.
At least seven people died in the chaos, U.S. officials said, as America’s longest war ended with its enemy the victor.
The crowds came while the Taliban enforced their rule over the capital of five million people after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country’s Western-backed government.
On Monday, the MEA had said the government was constantly monitoring the developments in Afghanistan with the representatives of Afghan Sikh and Hindu communities. “The Government will take all steps to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals and our interests in Afghanistan,” the MEA spokesman Arindam Bagchi had said.
Announcing a general amnesty for the Afghans across the country, the Taliban urged women to join its government, trying to calm nerves across a nervous capital city that only the day before saw chaos at its airport as people tried to flee their rule. It was perhaps the first time the Taliban showed some change in its attitude towards women who during its previous rule before 2001, had forcibly kept them behind the curtain.
“The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims,” Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, said, using the militants’ term for Afghanistan. “They should be in government structure according to Shariah law. The structure of government is not fully clear, but based on experience, there should be a fully Islamic leadership and all sides should join.”
The comments by Samangani also represented the first announcement on governance from a federal level across the country. While there were no major reports of abuses or fighting in Kabul, many residents have stayed home and remain fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted.
Older generations remember their ultraconservative Islamic views, which included stonings, amputations and public executions for even minor crimes.
Meanwhile Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO’s senior civilian representative to Afghanistan, posted video online showing the Kabul airport runway empty with American troops on the tarmac. What appeared to be a military cargo plane could be seen in the distance from behind a chain-link fence in the footage.
The runway “is open,” he wrote on Twitter. “I see airplanes landing and taking off.” Overnight, flight-tracking data showed a US Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules plane at the airport and later taking off for Qatar, home to Al-Udeid Air Base and the US military Central Command’s forward headquarters. There were no other immediate flights seen in Afghan airspace, which has been taken over by the American military as commercial flights have been halted in the country.
Across Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands had been wounded in the fighting. Security forces and politicians handed over their provinces and bases without a fight, likely believing the two-decade Western experiment to remake Afghanistan would not survive the resurgent Taliban. The last American troops had planned to withdraw at the end of the month.
“The world is following events in Afghanistan with a heavy heart and deep disquiet about what lies ahead,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
A resolute US President Joe Biden on Monday said he stood “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw American forces and acknowledged the “gut-wrenching” images unfolding in Kabul. Biden said he faced a choice between honouring a previously negotiated withdrawal agreement or sending thousands more troops back to begin a third decade of war.
“After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces,” Biden said in a televised address from the White House.
Talks appeared to be continuing between the Taliban and several Afghan government officials, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council. President Ashraf Ghani earlier fled the country amid the Taliban advance and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Official sources said senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi had arrived in Kabul from Qatar. Muttaqi is a former higher education minister during the Taliban’s last rule. Muttaqi had begun making contact with Afghan political leaders even before Ghani fled.
Sources said the talks underway in the Afghan capital were aimed at bringing other non-Taliban leaders into the government that Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has said would be an “inclusive Afghan government.” There is little indication about the substance of the talks, but Shaheen had earlier said a government would be announced after negotiations with non-Taliban leaders are completed.
Afghans familiar with the talks said some rounds have gone late into the night and have been underway since soon after Ghani’s departure.
Meanwhile, a large number of terrorist fighters belonging to the Islamic State and Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba are learnt to have entered Kabul in the last few days. The Taliban leadership is aware of the presence of these foreign terrorists who entered the city carrying Taliban flag. It is understood that the groups are operating in different parts of the Kabul city and are not under the control of the Taliban.
Under the agreement with the United States, the Taliban are committed to prevent terrorist groups from operating in Afghanistan and they are expected to evict these groups from capital Kabul in the next few days. An Afghan human rights worker who works closely with the Taliban political office in Doha said the next few days are going to be critical as the groups may indulge in operations on their own in violation of the orders of the Taliban leadership.
Pakistan has emphasised the importance of an “inclusive” political settlement in Afghanistan as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and discussed the chaotic and rapidly changing situation in the war-ravaged country after the Taliban recaptured the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Blinken’s talks with Qureshi was part of the several outreaches made by him to many of his counterparts across the world, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at his daily news conference on Monday.
“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Qureshi discussed Afghanistan and the developing situation there,” Price said without giving any other details of the phone call.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office in a statement in Islamabad said Qureshi shared Pakistan’s perspective with Blinken noting the significant change in the situation within a short span and the avoidance of violence.
Biden later also had talks with the Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar on the Afghanistan situation. Jaishankar arrived in New York to chair two high-level signature events this week under India’s current Security Council Presidency, has said he expected to discuss the situation in Afghanistan during his engagements at the United Nations.
Jaishankar arrived on Monday as the Security Council held an emergency meeting on the situation in Afghanistan, the second time in just over the 10 days that the powerful UN body met under India’s Presidency for the month of August to discuss the rapidly deteriorating and unraveling situation in the war-torn country.
“Significant UN Security Council discussions today on developments in Afghanistan. Expressed the concerns of the international community. Expect to discuss these during my engagements at the UN,” Mr. Jaishankar tweeted.
India’s Permanent Representative at the UN, T.S. Tirumurti said the situation was of great concern to India. “As a neighbour of Afghanistan and a friend to its people, the situation is of great concern to us in India. Everyone is concerned about the increasing violations of the fundamental rights of Afghan citizens,” he said.
