Afghanistan updates: Child handed over wall as Afghans try to flee Taliban
New footage has shown hows crowds massing near a wall at the airport are giving their kids away so they can save them from the Taliban.
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Explosions were heard as large numbers of Afghans crowded outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, as the US military worked to secure the complex.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon said that some 4,500 military personnel were present in Kabul.
New footage (above) shows crowds massing near a wall at the airport. Explosions can be heard, and a few individuals are seen clambering over the wall, with help from soldiers.
At one point, a small child is raised to a foreign soldier guarding the area. After a brief hesitation, the soldier takes the child and brings them over the wall.
Taliban fighters have covered a “thief” in tar and paraded him on a truck as the terror group continues to terrorise Kabul.
The shocking footage shows the alleged car thief strapped to the back of a vehicle with his face smothered in tar and his hands tied behind his back as crowds watched on.
It comes as Taliban fighters whipped and beat people on the street, even pointing rocket launchers at civilians in a terrifying crackdown in Kabul.
The Taliban fighters – dubbed the “Angels of Salvation” – have reportedly been going door-to-door and dragging alleged thieves, political opponents and activists from their homes at gunpoint.
And footage obtained by Fox News showed a convoy of Taliban fanatics roaring down a street in the Afghan capital and opening fire while reportedly hunting for activists and government workers.
Disturbing video footage also emerged from Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover is showing the country’s new reality under the Islamic regime.
People have been cowering in the streets as Taliban fighters beat them with whips and clubs.
Political opponents were said to be dragged from their homes as the Taliban’s enforcers went door to door searching for Afghans who worked with western allies.
Outside of Kabul’s airport distressed Afghan women were seen in video footage reaching through iron gates to US soldiers to let them in before they were turned away.
“The Taliban’s coming for me,” one screamed.
Taliban checkpoints loomed nearby with armed men carrying rocket launchers and AK-47s.
A young boy covered in blood was carried away from the airport as the Taliban used whips and rifle butts on the crowds unable to flee, according to images from The Los Angeles Times. He was limp, and his eyes were rolling back in his head, the photographer Marcus Yam reported.
On the street behind the boy, a seemingly unconscious woman with a bloodied face and hands was lay unmoving and alone and cars drove past.
Another showed an unconscious woman being carried away from the airport. Mr Yam said Taliban fighters used sticks, rubber hose, rope and their rifles to beat back the crowds.
Other footage showed groups of men placed against the wall, some with arms bound behind their backs and others raise, as armed men aimed firearms at their backs.
Elsewhere, at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in the northeastern city of Jalalabad as the Taliban broke up a protest against replacing the flag of Afghanistan with the flag of the Taliban, according to Al Jazeera. Video from the confrontation showed armed me firing weapons in the air and attacking crowds with batons.
A NATO official told Reuters 17 people were injured in a stampede trying to enter a gate at the airport.
Inside the presidential palace, meanwhile, a spokesman for the Taliban continued to promise an inclusive government and that Afghan women “will be happy” with rights “within the framework of Islam”.
“We don’t want Afghanistan to be a battlefield anymore,” chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a news conference. “From today onward, war is over.”
The footage emerging out of the country showed images of women in the streets being painted over as the Taliban asserted its dominance.
AUSSIE TROOPS RESCUE LUCKY FEW
Meanwhile, as Taliban fighters shot and attacked Afghan asylum-seekers attempting to reach Kabul airport, placing Australian plans to rescue up to 800 people in jeopardy and forcing the first RAAF flight to leave with only 26 passengers aboard.
That flight, with more than 100 empty seats, left on Wednesday morning local time and, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, will be the first of many.
Late on Wednesday night, Australians and Afghans with refugee visas were being processed by Australian officials on the ground at Kabul airport amid chaotic scenes and sporadic gunfire, according to a report in The Australian.
Australian officials put out the call for Australian passport holders to go to the airport’s north gate, which had earlier been overrun by hundreds of families seeking a way out. “We will do what we can for you,” an Australian said on a message group for those awaiting flights.
The call was soon extended to Afghans holding Australian humanitarian visas.
An interpreter, Najib, who was supporting Australian officials on the ground, told refugee visa holders at about 9.40pm to make their way to the airport.
“We have the officers of foreign affairs, immigration, Aussie soldiers,” he told the chat group. “They got us in. We are in a secure location now.”
The breakthrough came after Mr Morrison had earlier warned “this is not a simple process”.
“The operation involves everything from establishing that contact with those who are in Afghanistan … to ensure that they can be in a position to be at the airport in order to be evacuated on the flights as they come into Kabul,” the Prime Minister said.
US THREATENS TALIBAN WITH ‘OVERWHELMING FORCE’
Amid the chaos in the streets, the US told its citizens and western allies standard in Afghanistan to make their own way to evacuations at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.
The commander of US Central Command Frank McKenzie met with Taliban leaders in Qatar to warn any interference with the evacuation would be met with “overwhelming force”.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her daily briefing if the Taliban interfere with safe passage to the airport “the consequences are the full weight and force of the United States military”.
As Biden administration officials were giving assurances of the Taliban’s co-operation, State Department told stranded westerners in a notification to make their own way to the airport but that “THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SECURITY AS YOU MAKE THIS TRIP”.
Asked if the US troops would stay in Afghanistan beyond the 31 August deadline until “everyone is out”, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he’s “not going to comment on hypotheticals”.
Mr Sullivan earlier defended evacuation of its embassy by helicopter, saying in an interview with the TODAY Show it was not reflective of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.
“To be fair, the helicopter has been the mode of transport from our embassy to the airport for the last 20 years. That is how we move people back and forth.”
A Pentagon official told Reuters it’s aiming to evacuate up to 22,000 Special Immigrant Visas but that “it’s going to be a challenge”. They hope to evacuate people at a rate of 5,000 to 9,000 per day once the full capacity of 6,000 troops arrive at Kabul’s airport.
DONALD TRUMP REVEALS DISCARDED EVACUATION PLAN
As the post-mortem on the withdrawal begins, former President Donald Trump said he warned the Taliban’s chief negotiator that the US would bomb his home village if insurgents broke their deal.
“I told them upfront, I said: ‘Look, before we start, let me just tell you right now that if anything bad happens to Americans or anybody else, or if you ever come over to our land, we will hit you with a force that no country has ever been hit with before, a force so great that you won’t even believe it, and your village, and we know where it is – and I named it – will be the first one,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
On Fox Business Wednesday morning, Mr Trump told anchor Maria Bartiromo trying to put soldiers back in now to secure a safe evacuation was “too late”.
“You don’t take the military out first you take the military out last, that’s like the captain jumping off the ship as the ship is sinking,” he said on Fox Business.
“You got to get your people out, you got to get them out first, then you take your equipment out, and after you take your equipment out you bomb the hell out of the forts so nobody else can use them, because I was going to do that … it will take the plane two hours, and you bomb the hell out of them, now they’re being used by the Taliban.”
JOHN HOWARD CLASHES WITH ABC OVER AFGHANS LEFT BEHIND
Former prime minister John Howard, meanwhile, clashed with ABC anchors Leigh Sales over why Afghans who helped Australian forces have not been evacuated.
Asked why anyone would ever again risk their lives to help Australians, Mr Howard said it was inaccurate to suggest the federal government considered Afghans a “low priority”.
“I think you’re making a judgment that can’t be justified on the known facts,” Mr Howard said. “You’re implying that the government is not trying.”
Mr Howard, who was in power when Australia joined the US in Afghanistan in 2001, said several Afghans have already returned to Australia and that some would have wanted to remain to serve their state.
“You’re making just a completely unfair generalisation about the behaviour of the government,” Mr Howard said, adding that it was far too early to make judgments on where or how the government has failed while agreeing the withdrawal could have been more orderly.
“But we had to deal, obviously, with the situation that we faced (at that time). And I think it is quite unfair on the government to suggest we haven’t even bothered to help any of the people who’ve helped us,” he said.
He added that while there are “undoubtedly elements” of al-Qaida still in Afghanistan, other terrorist attacks following September 11 have not materialised out of Afghanistan.
“So on that criterion, the mission, whatever may be said of it, has not been a failure,” he said.
FIRST AUSSIE RESCUE FLIGHT OUT OF KABUL LANDS SAFELY
Scott Morrison has confirmed Australia’s operation to evacuate Australians from Afghanistan has begun, as he revealed the government will more than double humanitarian visas for Afghans.
The prime minister said the first plane touched down at a base in the Emirates at 10.45am Canberra time Wednesday.
“There were 26 people on board that flight. That included Australian citizens, Afghan nationals with visas and one foreign official working in an international agency,” he said.
He said this was “the first of what will be many flights” this week.
“One additional C1-30 and two C-17s are being prepositioned to join that existing C-130 to support the regular flights out of Kabul in the days ahead and for as long as we can continue to operate the flights to get people out. We intend for those numbers to increase on future flights,” Mr Morrison told reporters on Wednesday.
An RAAF C-130 Hercules aircraft was seen on flight radars appearing to be returning to the UAE from the Afghan capital after Australians were overnight told to get to Kabul’s international airport.
There are more than 600 citizens, dual citizens and Afghans seeking sanctuary to be flown out.
The flight came as US forces fortified the airport precinct after the chaos of recent days and the White House was in talks with the Taliban to ensure those wishing to leave were able to enter the airport without hinderence.
It is known the Taliban has set up checkpoints outside the airport and was stopping people to check identities of who was trying to get into the Coalition-controlled precinct.
Mr Morrison said the security situation at the airport has improved and more broadly across Kabul “supported particularly by the presence of US and UK troops on the ground being able to take control of the airport.”
“It still, though, remains an incredibly challenging environment in which to operate,” he said.
With regards to offering Afghans resettlement in Australia, the prime minister said Australia will provide around 3000 humanitarian visas.
“That’s more than double what we’ve been doing, and in some cases triple what we’ve been doing, in the current year. And we do believe we’ll be able to do more than that,” he said.
But he made clear Australia “will only be resettling people through our official humanitarian program”.
“We will not be offering a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. We will not be allowing people to enter Australia illegally, even at this time. Our policy has not changed,” he said.
He said Australia would bring back as many people as it could.
Asked whether the Australian government would recognise a Taliban government, Mr Morrison said he would not make assumptions.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said trust needs to be earned.
“No government has been formed. It remains to be seen what form and membership that government has and I would also say a request for trust is usually met by an expectation that trust is earned.”
The United States has made more than a dozen flights as it looks to rescue an incredible 11,000 citizens and others from Kabul.
The Biden administration said it would help Australia move people with National Security adviser Jake Sullivan telling media the US had responsibility to ensure allies got out.
“We will be eager to work with Australia to help get out Australian citizens and other individuals who the Australians would like to see get out.”
TALIBAN VOWS SHARIA LAW
It comes as the Taliban declared their victory a “proud moment for the nation” and vowed to impose sharia law on Afghanistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s longtime spokesman, emerged from the shadows on Tuesday local time in his first-ever public appearance since the terrorist group defeated the government.
He said the Taliban “are committed to the rights of women” but added that would be “under the system of Sharia”.
“We are going to allow women to work and study. We have got frameworks, of course. Women are going to be very active in the society but within the framework of Islam,” Mujahid said in Kabul.
Mujahid told reporters the new government would be “positively different” from their 1996-2001 regime, infamous for deaths by stoning and barring women from working in contact with men.
“If the question is based on ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference … but if we calculate it based on experience, maturity, and insight, no doubt there are many differences,” he said.
“We have the right to act according to our religious principles.
“Other countries have different approaches, rules and regulations. Afghans have the right to have their own rules and regulations in accordance with our values.”
While sharia simply refers to laws that are derived from Islam, in practice the Taliban have an extreme interpretation of what this means.
They have previously forbidden women from leaving the house alone without an adult male relative and not allowed them to work or be educated.
Already there have been reports of the houses of prominent women being marked and many have spoken about their fear on what the future holds under the Taliban.
“All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z,” he said. “We will not seek revenge.”
Mujahid said a government would soon be formed but offered few details other than to say the Taliban would “connect with all sides”.
He also said they were “committed to letting women work in accordance with the principles of Islam”, without offering specifics.
The Taliban are now tightening their grip on power following their lightning victory that has shocked the world.
SHOCKING FOOTAGE OF MEN CLINGING TO PLANE
Dramatic footage has emerged of a man filming himself and others clinging to a US Air Force plane as it taxied for takeoff from Kabul Airport on August 16.
The footage, which circulated on social media on August 17, shows people waving to crowds lining the tarmac as people scrambled to flee the country following a Taliban takeover.
The Associated Press reported that several people were killed after falling from a plane that departed the airport.
Separate footage showing people running after the C-17 transport aircraft before takeoff emerged on Monday. Another video was described as showing the bodies of people who fell to their deaths.
By Tuesday local time, NATO’s ambassador to Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo said the situation at the airport was “under control”.
It comes as distressing video also emerged that appeared to show a stowaway trapped in the landing gear of a US plane after jumping on the wheels to flee the Taliban.
Several Afghans were seen jumping onto the wheels of the C-17 as it prepared to take off from Kabul airport and three fell hundreds of feet to their deaths.
In the distressing footage the man can be seen hanging from the side of the plane and it was reported the crew found a body in the landing gear.
It appears the man became trapped in a panel that is part of the landing gear mechanism and which closes when the wheels are retracted.
The discovery was made when the crew struggled to close the landing gear and then made an emergency landing in a third country, The Washington Post reports.
In another video, a group of men can be seen riding on top of the wheel bay as the plane taxis along the runway, according to The Sun.
It’s unclear if the person taking the footage managed to get off or be blown off before it became airborne.
Around 20 men are seen on the wheel bay as the plane goes by, with some even waving, in yet more footage.
Again it’s also unclear how many of them managed to get off or were killed when they fell off.
The tragedy shows the extent to which Afghans are desperate to escape what they fear will be a return to the Taliban’s brutal rule based on an extreme interpretation of Islam.
In chaotic scenes echoing the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, petrified men, women and children were filmed trying to get on aircraft after the Taliban stormed the capital.
With civilian flights suspended, many turned to US Air Force aircraft to try get out of the country.
Separate footage shows Afghans running alongside a C-17 as it prepares to take off with around a dozen holding on to the wheel bay.
Images taken from the ground show stowaways clinging to the plane as it took off.
Harrowing video shows the stowaways then falling several hundred feet to their deaths after being thrown from the plane as it took off from Kabul airport.
WHO IS TO BLAME FOR TAKEOVER?
NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg blames Afghan leaders for the Afghanistan “tragedy”.
“Ultimately, the Afghan political leadership failed to stand up to the Taliban and to achieve the peaceful solution that Afghans desperately wanted,” he told reporters via video link from Brussels on Tuesday local time.
“This failure of the Afghan leadership led to the tragedy we are witnessing today.”
However the leading watchdog on Afghanistan reconstruction says the US “struggled to develop and implement a coherent strategy” and the overall picture there is “bleak”, in a report released on Tuesday.
John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), wrote that any gains “in life expectancy, the mortality of children under five, GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, and literacy rates” during the years-long US mission were not “commensurate with the U.S. investment or sustainable after a U.S. drawdown”.
Of the US mission, Sopko wrote: “If the goal was to rebuild and leave a country that could sustain itself and pose little threat to US national security interests, the overall picture is bleak.”
The report also accuses US leaders of failing to understand Afghanistan’s political dynamics and said their priorities were influenced by their own politics.
“US officials prioritised their own political preferences for what Afghanistan’s reconstruction should look like, rather than what they could realistically achieve,” the report said.
“US officials created explicit timelines in the mistaken belief that a decision in Washington could transform the calculus of complex Afghan institutions, powerbrokers, and communities contested by the Taliban.”
DUTTON ISSUES WARNING TO TALIBAN
Defence Minister Peter Dutton warned Taliban leaders the “world is watching” and that Australia is ready to act if terror takes hold in Afghanistan.
In a blunt assessment, Mr Dutton also challenged the terror group to abandon its barbaric treatment of women, adding that Australia would support the United States in responding to terrorist threats re-emerging in Afghanistan.
“The next move can be to treat women and treat young girls in the same fashion they have in the past, or they can abandon that barbaric practice and adopt a new method and a new approach,” Mr Dutton said on ABC last night.
He added if another terrorist threat like al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden manifests in Afghanistan, then Australia would support the United States in striking back.
“We would be supportive of [the US] in disrupting any major terrorist attack, whether it was in the West or elsewhere,” he said.
“The United States has the ability in the air, on the ground, to conduct such an attack and people should be hearing that message loud and clear.”
Mr Dutton said the Taliban’s first test is to allow allied forces to safely evacuate in Afghanistan.
His warning comes as Australian military aircraft and personnel have been “paused” at a military air base in the United Arab Emirates as Coalition counterparts attempt to secure the airport in Kabul for a mass evacuation.
BIDEN DOUBLES DOWN ON EXIT CALL
Afghans have already reported seeing changes on the streets of Kabul on Day 1 of Taliban rule as US President Joe Biden doubles down on his call to withdraw from Afghanistan, which critics say was too soon.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said all Australia can do for Afghans who “stood with us” would be done but warned not all will be reached for evacuation with “events overtaken many of us”.
The US and coalition partners have now set August 31 as the date for all foreign civilians and others including Afghan interpreters and their families to be out of Afghanistan.
The Pentagon confirmed US “oversight” of the evacuations would conclude on that date.
Peter Dutton confirmed the ADF was on standby at the Al Minhad Air Base in UAE until control could be maintained at Kabul, with chaotic scenes blamed squarely on the failure of Afghan armed forces.
“We have assets in place at the moment in Al Minhad at our base there in the UAE and we will do whatever we can when it is safe for our people to land there (Kabul) to do the uplift we are planning on doing,” Mr Dutton said.
“We won’t be landing into Kabul in these circumstances …”
Mr Morrison said preparations for evacuations had begun but for operational reasons would not say when the first airlift would take place.
He said Australia would do all it could “for those who have stood with us”, referring to Afghan locals who supported our embassy and ADF, but said help will not reach all whom it should and it was likely to be a sad and distressing time for Australia’s veterans and their families who sacrificed much for the mission.
“But I want to talk openly to veterans that despite our best efforts I know that support won’t reach all that it should. On the ground, events have overtaken many of us, we wish it were different.”
Mr Dutton said Australia went into Afghanistan 20 years ago for the right reasons post September 11 terror attacks, and had prevented major terror attacks in that time and ADF personnel should be very proud.
He said he was disappointed by the Afghan army and security forces capitulation.
“I am disappointed and we are seeing the scenes we are now because of that,” Mr Dutton said of the failure of local forces to hold out the Taliban’s lightning sweep across the country.
“When you have training you have put in place and investment made in people and equipment and they abandon their post and the Taliban overrun areas very quickly, that is disappointing and tragic and the reality of what has happened in Afghanistan. But we should be proud though of what our men and women in Afghanistan have done in our name.”
Of US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years, a move some critics say was done in haste, Mr Dutton said it was damned if you did and damned if you didn’t.
“You could stay in Afghanistan for another 20 years, another 100 years and you may or may not see peace,” he said.
A defiant President Biden rejected any blame for the chaos in Kabul describing the scenes, notably of Afghan locals desperately clinging then falling from US military aircraft taking off, as gut wrenching.
In an address to the nation, Mr Biden said it was time to end America’s longest war.
“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces … the truth is this did unfold more quickly than we anticipated,” he said.
“Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralised democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.”
His words came as there was still chaos in the Afghan capital with roaming armed gangs, some made up of the thousands of prisoners the Taliban released when they opened all the jails.
Local news outlet TOLO News said Day 1 of Taliban rule in Kabul was noticeably different with an absence of usual bustling streets, with most offices and shops shut.
“The public presence of women was noticeably reduced with no large gatherings of women in the city, which would have been common on other days,” it reported.
There were armed gangs on the street and Taliban checkpoints. Billboards for women’s beauty salon products and street advertisements for wedding gowns all featuring models with exposed faces were being painted over.
Locals reported food prices for staples like flour had also gone up by at least 25 per cent.
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Afghans on temporary visas would not be forced to leave “at this stage”.
“All the Afghan citizens who are currently in Australia on a temporary visa will be supported by the Australian government,” My Payne said.
“And no Afghan visa holder will be asked to return to Afghanistan at this stage.”
Originally published as Afghanistan updates: Child handed over wall as Afghans try to flee Taliban
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