Australian troops rescue lucky few as Taliban shoots Afghans
Taliban fighters shoot, beat Afghans trying to reach Kabul airport, forcing first RAAF flight to leave with just 26 passengers.
Taliban fighters have shot and beaten Afghan asylum-seekers trying to reach Kabul airport, threatening Australian plans to rescue up to 800 people and forcing the first RAAF flight to leave with just 26 passengers aboard.
That flight, with more than 100 empty seats, left on Wednesday morning and, according to 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.
The processing began after 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 widened 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.
“It’s very difficult for any Australian to imagine the sense of chaos and uncertainty that is existing right across this country, the breakdown in formal communications, the ability to reach people.”
He said two C-130 Hercules and two C-17 Globemasters aircraft would shuttle people between Kabul and United Arab Emirates “for as long as we can continue to operate those flights”.
The US regained control of Kabul airport on Tuesday after shocking scenes of Afghans flooding the runway and clinging to departing flights earlier in the week.
The Taliban say Afghanistan under its rule will be a peaceful, narcotics-free country with an inclusive government in which women would be free to work and study within the bounds of Islamic sharia principles.
In its first press conference in Kabul on Tuesday night, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group had matured and evolved in the 20 years since it was toppled from power and would pardon “all those who had fought against us”.
“We don’t want any internal or external enemies. I would like to assure the international community, including the US, that nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan,” Mr Mujahid told a packed room of local and international reporters.
The press conference was held as reports of beheadings, beatings and forced marriages continued to emerge from around the country.
”I would like to assure our neighbours, regional countries, we are not going to allow our territory to be used against anybody, any country in the world,” Mr Mujahid said.
“The whole global community should be assured that we are committed to these pledges that you will not be harmed in any way from our soil.”
In return, the international community must respect the new government’s right to act in -accordance with its “religious belief, rules and principles”, he said.
Afghan women would have rights “within the framework of sharia” and would be “happy about it”, he added.
Women would be allowed to work in certain fields and girls would be allowed to go to school.
The Morrison government on Wednesday announced 3000 humanitarian places would be allocated to Afghan nationals under the existing program, with priority given to family members of Australians, women, girls, children and the minority groups.
Washington had flown some 3200 US citizens and 2000 Afghans out by Wednesday, but as many as 11,000 US citizens and 80,000 Afghan allies remained in Afghanistan. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said “time is of the essence”, referring to the Biden administration’s August 31 deadline to complete the withdrawal.
“We all share a sense of urgency here,” Mr Kirby said.
After days of anger over the manner of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said America took some responsibility for the fate of its allies and their citizens now trapped in the country.
“We are working to facilitate flights – and have already done so – for countries that have lined them up and gotten their citizens to the airport,” he said.
“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.”
Amid reports of Taliban roadblocks preventing access to the airport, there were fears for the success of the wider evacuation.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said his government’s first evacuation flight out of the Afghan capital took off with just seven people on board, though a later flight left Kabul with 120 Germans and Afghans.
“The situation is much more dangerous (for Afghans) because there is no promise of being let through at the Taliban checkpoints,” Mr Maas said.
With the Taliban guarding the airport and roaming the streets, those with foreign links say they are scared to leave their hideouts to make their way to the airport.
“I can’t take the risk to come to (Hamid Karzai International Airport) with my family,” said one Afghan woman who said she had received an Australian visa.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government was working to resolve security issues including Taliban checkpoints blocking access to Kabul airport.
“Kabul … is obviously a very complex and fluid environment with a whole range of security issues, including the establishment of multiple checkpoints around the city, which are broadly Taliban-controlled,” she said.
“Yesterday there were multiple kilometre-long traffic queues outside the airport. At one point, people were having to be lifted over gates into the airport. It is extremely challenging.”
As Kabul remains under nightly curfew, talks are continuing between deposed Afghan civilian political leaders, including former president Hamid Karzai, and Taliban officials on how a Taliban-dominated government would operate. A nine-member delegation of Taliban leaders, including political chief Abdul Ghani Baradar, was expected to join those talks after flying into southern Kandahar from Qatar in the hopes of reaching an agreement that the international community would recognise.
The group has said it hopes to wipe out the country’s multi-billion-dollar heroin trade, which propped up its former regime and then its Islamic insurgency for decades, with international help.
The Biden administration has frozen billions of dollars in Afghan government reserves held in US institutions and warned it will only recognise a Taliban government that does not harbour terrorists and respects the rights of all citizens, including women and girls.
Germany and the EU have collectively suspended $2bn in development aid to Afghanistan while the UK said it would only provide humanitarian aid.
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