Calm at Kabul airport as flights leave with handful of passengers

There is a relative calm at Kabul’s international airport after days of chaos. But the reason planes are taking off half-empty is concerning.

Desperate Afghans clambering to get onto planes at Kabul’s international airport is an image the world will not soon forget.

But the scenes following the Taliban’s capture of the country’s capital city were short lived and have been replaced with relative calm.

Australia has evacuated the first 26 people, including Australian and Afghan citizens.

“Kabul is a dangerous place. We’ve got Australians operating in a very dangerous operation,” he told reporters, confirming that 26 had been extracted from the country.

Other aircraft are also taking off with plenty of room to spare on board.

A German military A-400M transport aircraft evacuated just seven people on its first flight out of Afghanistan, the foreign ministry has confirmed.

Men hold onto the landing gear of a plane leaving Kabul. Picture: Twitter

A spokesperson for Germany’s Federal Foreign Office told European news agencies that the plane, which can carry up to 150 people, had plenty of capacity.

“Due to the chaotic circumstances at the airport and regular exchanges of fire at the access point, it was not guaranteed last night that further German nationals and other persons to be evacuated would be allowed access to the airport at all without military protection,” the spokesperson said.

The Wall Street Journal reports that an Italian evacuation flight which left Kabul on Monday “was half empty with babies of Afghan staff sleeping, to the embassy’s Carabinieri protection detail”.

The publication reported the real reason flights were empty was that Taliban forces had set up roadblocks outside the airport and were stopping people from trying to flee.

“The chaos outside the gates of the military part of the airport, where US forces are based, left many Western citizens and Afghans who were cleared for travel unable to reach their flights,” the Journal wrote.

Taliban have put up checkpoints at entrance to #Kabul airport, residents tell me.

That’s preventing thousands of Afghans who have travel docs from leaving.

As @WSJ reports, some evacuation flights leaving nearly empty.

Window of opportunity closing for Afghans to escape.

— Frud Bezhan فرود بيژن (@FrudBezhan) August 17, 2021

The reports conflict with information from the White House which said on Tuesday that the Taliban had promised civilians could travel safely to the airport as the US military stepped up its airlift operations for Americans and Afghans fleeing the Islamist group.

Washington wants to complete the exodus before its August 31 withdrawal deadline, and thousands of US soldiers were at the airport as the Pentagon planned to ramp up flights of its huge C-17 transport jets to as many as two dozen a day.

US officials said they were in contact with Taliban commanders to ensure the flight operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport remained safe from attack and that citizens and Afghans seeking to leave had safe passage to the airport.

But State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday the US could decide to keep its core diplomatic presence, now operating out of the airport after the US embassy was shuttered, after August 31.

“If it is safe and responsible for us to potentially stay longer, that is something we may be able to look at,” Mr Price said.

A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III flown from Kabul to Qatar on August 15, 2021 evacuated 640 people. Picture: US Air Force/AFP

Mr Price also called on the Taliban to follow through on promises to respect the rights of citizens including women.

“If the Taliban says they are going to respect the rights of their citizens, we will be looking for them to uphold that statement,” he said.

Despite some reports that people are being harassed and even beaten as they try to leave, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said “large numbers” had been able to reach the airport.

“The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment,” he told reporters.

At the Pentagon, Major General Hank Taylor said that US military officials at the airport had also been in communication with Taliban commanders about ensuring the evacuations would continue safely over the coming days.

“We have had no hostile interactions, no attack and no threat by the Taliban,” said Major General Taylor.

He said that since the airport was reopened early on Tuesday, the US military had evacuated close to 800 people, among them 165 Americans, on seven flights.

Indian Nationals prepare to board an Indian military aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 17, 2021 to be evacuated after the Taliban stunning takeover of Afghanistan. Picture: AFP

Security broke down at the airport on Monday with videos showing hundreds of Afghans on the runway trying to impede a giant C-17 transport plane and clinging to it.

Videos appeared to show two people falling to their deaths from the aircraft after it took off.

Another person was later found dead in a wheel well.

US Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said they were investigating the incidents.

“Before the aircrew could offload the cargo, the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians,” she said.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible.”

– With AFP