ADF evacuates 450 more people from Afghanistan

The Prime Minister has announced four more flights have successfully left Kabul, evacuating 450 more people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Australia is in talks with the US about extending the deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan as allied forces struggle to get people out of the country due to an increasingly “volatile” security situation.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed Australia supported current discussions going on “about the prospect of the United States extending its withdrawal deadline” of August 31.

“We are part of those discussions,” she said.

“If they are to be extended, we are absolutely ready to support a continuing operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

Australia completed a further four flights carrying more than 450 people, including Australian citizens, Afghan nationals with locally engaged employee and humanitarian visas, from Afghanistan overnight.

“Our continued focus is on bringing out every Australian and Australian visa holder that we possibly can and supporting those vulnerable (Afghans) as well to move if we possibly can,” Ms Payne said.

“Since the 18th of August, that total is over 1,000 people again, including Australia and New Zealand nationals, those visa holders and foreign nationals.”

Mr Morrison said Australia would continue to fly into the city and aim to get “greater uplift in the days we still have remaining as part of this operation”.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the situation in Kabul was “extremely volatile” and “very dangerous”.

Ms Payne said the most significant obstacle remained access to the Hamid Karzai International Airport.

“Our continued focus is bringing out every Australian and Australian visa holder we possibly can and supporting those vulnerable Afghan people (to leave) as much as … we can,” she said.

Ms Payne said Australia was involved in discussions lead by the US about extending the August 31 deadline for withdrawing from Afghanistan.

Families on-board the Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster. Picture: AFP PHOTO / AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE

People forming a line to board a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Picture: AFP PHOTO / AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE

Signaller Charbal Nunes of 145 Signal Squadron and Corporal Nikkiska McGlashan, 3 Combat Signal Regiment help a family transport a cot to their room at the temporary camp for Afghan evacuees in the UAE. Picture: Supplied/Australian Department of Defence

Not every Afghan national who helped the allies will escape the Taliban officials have warned, as the lucky few evacuated from the “chaos” in Kabul get a first taste of their new lives in Australia.

Families evacuated from Afghanistan by the Australian Defence Force were handed phone chargers, children’s toys and a baby’s cot as they begin to rebuild their lives from a temporary camp set up on Australia’s base in the United Arab Emirates.

But back in Kabul, the declining security situation has forced senior officials to concede there is no chance of everyone being evacuated from the capital.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said it was “mathematically impossible” to evacuate the estimated 60,000 people it aimed to by August 31 – the self-imposed withdrawal deadline.

US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul hoping to flee from the country after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. Picture: Wakil Kohsar/AFP

Australia has advised citizens and visa holders to make their own way to the Hamid Karzai International Airport for evacuation, despite the risk posed by armed checkpoints run by the Taliban and militants firing shots at those gathered at the gates of the tarmac.

But the US has warned its citizens to avoid travelling to the Kabul airport due to “potential security threats outside the gates” unless they have specific instructions from officials to go there.

Sydney man Obeid Hamid, who has brought together community leaders in a new group called Lobby for Afghanistan, said it was “not possible” to get everyone out by the end of the month, as the “size of the problem is so big”.

Mr Hamid said the husband of a friend who worked for the Afghan health Minister had only just managed to get on a flight out of Kabul after days of trying in “dangerous” conditions.

“I certainly know of many that are stuck and have made many attempts to get to the airport, they’re really at risk,” he said.

Australian Army Private Lachmaiya plays cricket with Afghanistan evacuees at the temporary camp in Australia's main operating base in the Middle East. Picture: Supplied/Australian Department of Defence

Afghanistan evacuees play with a ball at the temporary camp. Picture: Supplied/Australian Department of Defence

Mr Hamid said there was a “groundswell of sympathy and support” from Australians to do more to help those in Afghanistan who had been the “champions” of the past 20 years, including civil leaders, female academics and journalists.

“A major concern is the level of proof and documentation required for a humanitarian visa is so extraordinarily high it makes it almost impossible to jump through the hoops for the majority of the people in this urgent situation,” he said.

Macquarie University Afghan Society vice president Sailay Mangal said there was a concerted effort in Australia to make it easier for refugees from Afghanistan to urgently apply for a visa.

“One of the issues we have realised is some people don’t have any form of identification and there’s no embassies or the UN open to go and get one, so we’re hoping people applying for humanitarian visas will be allowed to use something else, like a letter verifying their ID, in the interim,” she said.

Australian Defence Force members of Joint Task Force 633 check in a family at the temporary camp in Australia’s main operating base in the Middle East. The camp will provide shelter to people evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan prior to onward travel to Australia. Picture: Supplied/Australian Department of Defence

Ms Mangal has been raising funds for displaced families in Kabul said it was “chaos” at the airport for anyone trying to get on an evacuation flight.

“Everyone is scared,” she said.

In the US, the front page of the New York Post slammed the botched evacuation effort with a front-page headline “Dumkirk”.

The mission to get as many allied citizens and visa holders out of Kabul had been described as the US’ “Dunkirk moment,” but the declining security situation has destroyed any hope of getting everyone out safely.

US Marines provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan. Picture: Nicholas Guevara/US Marine Corps/AFP

Meanwhile in his first political rally since the fall of Kabul, former president Donald Trump criticised President Joe Biden for the chaos in Afghanistan.

“Vietnam looks like a masterclass in strategy compared to Joe Biden’s catastrophe and it didn’t have to happen,” he said.

“All he had to do was leave the soldiers there until everything’s out, our citizens, our weapons, then you bomb the hell out of the bases.”

Mr Biden’s claims about the situation in Afghanistan have been repeatedly contradicted by his own defence officials in recent days, including that the Taliban were letting Americans reach the Kabul airport.

Mr Biden told reporters 169 US citizens “got over the wall into the airport using military assets,” but it was later reported those people were loaded onto helicopters from a nearby hotel as they’d been unable to get to the Kabul airport.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said officials were “mindful” of reports the Taliban were directly preventing access to the airport.

He also contradicted Mr Biden’s claim that al Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan.

“We do not believe (al Qaeda’s presence) it is exorbitantly high,” Mr Kirby said.

“But we don’t have an exact figure for you … our intelligence gathering ability in Afghanistan isn’t what it used to be because we aren’t there with the same numbers that we used to be.”