Afghanistan: Taliban take over Kabul as President Ashraf Ghani flees, desperate mission to evacuate Western staff underway
Taliban fighters seize Kabul, triggering desperate scenes at the airport where thousands are attempting to board Western evacuation flights.
The United States lowered the flag on its embassy in Kabul and has relocated almost all staff to the airport, where US forces are taking over air traffic control for the next 48 hours, officials said Monday.
“We are completing a series of steps to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of US and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights,” the Pentagon and State Department said in a joint statement.
“Almost all” personnel from the embassy have relocated to the airport including the acting ambassador, Ross Wilson, who remains in touch with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a State Department spokesperson said.
“The American flag has been lowered from the US embassy compound and is now securely located with embassy staff,” the spokesperson said.
The shuttering of the US embassy, which was one of the largest in the world, comes nearly 20 years after the United States returned following the defeat of the Taliban regime.
With stunning speed, the Taliban retook the country in little more than a week after President Joe Biden began the final withdrawal of troops, closing America’s longest war.
The United States has sent 6000 troops to the airport to fly out embassy personnel as well as Afghans who assisted the United States as interpreters or in other support roles and now fear retribution.
Their mission will be “focused solely on facilitating these efforts and will be taking over air traffic control,” the joint statement said.
The swift operation came after President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan as the Taliban took control of most of the country including a dramatic coup of the capital, Kabul, with dramatic video showing panicked Afghanis swarming the airport to board Western evacuation flights.
Kabul News TV reported that Ghani, his wife Rula Ghani, his chief of staff Hamdullah Mohib and his senior advisor Fazel Mahmood Fazli flew first to Tajikistan and then onto Oman shortly after the Taliban began entering the Afghan capital on Sunday morning.
Ghani posted on social media he had fled to “avoid the bleeding flood, I thought it was best to get out”. He said: “Taliban have won the judgement of sword and guns and now they are responsible for protecting the countrymen’s honour, wealth and self-esteem. They didn’t win the legitimacy of hearts.’’
In the absence of Ghani, the former president Hamid Karzai has joined with senior politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah to attempt to negotiate with the Taliban about the transition of power. Karzai called for the Taliban to maintain restraint and to safeguard people’s lives and property.
Flanked by 11 senior Taliban officials, Taliban political chief Mullah Baradar Akhund used a captured broadcast network in Kabul to congratulate the people of Afghanistan and the people of Kabul on the Taliban victory. He urged his fighters to show restraint and gratitude for ongoing victories. Baradar said the Taliban’s responsibility had become “heavier’’ with major challenges to ensure security to the public.
The US embassy issued an emergency alert that the airport was “taking fire’’, and the security situation at the facility was deteriorating rapidly.
At the US Embassy compound helicopters ferried American and Western diplomats and civilians to the military side of Kabul airport. One after another, Chinooks and Black Hawks took off from the landing zone, spraying dust.
Below them was a city of traffic jams and roundabouts choked by cars - many of them filled with Afghans trying to reach the airport. Dark smoke, presumably from burning documents, rose from the presidential palace.
Pictures from the airport show chaos as hundreds of people attempted to board military transporter planes on the tarmac.
Crazy chaotic scenes at Kabul airport.#Kabul#Taliban#Afghanistanpic.twitter.com/MX7ZQRVwyb
— Wajahat Kazmi (@KazmiWajahat) August 15, 2021
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance “was helping keep Kabul airport open to facilitate and coordinate evacuations” after consulting with member countries.
Thousands of people can be seen on the tarmac at the airport as more crowd inside the terminal - part of a desperate exodus to escape the Taliban, according to footage posted on Twitter by Saad Mohseni of MOBY Group, Afghanistan’s largest media outlet.
“Another Saigon moment,” Mohseni wrote. “Chaotic scenes at Kabul International Airport. No security. None.”
“There are two thousand individuals plus (suitcases and all) on the tarmac not allowing flights to take off,” Mohseni wrote in another tweet. “This is a catastrophe.”
This is happening right now aboard KamAir destined for Istanbul. (Video sent by a friend) https://t.co/RfLVbKeh9Zpic.twitter.com/kGiLwJH1Ka
— Saad Mohseni (@saadmohseni) August 15, 2021
By Sunday evening, several Taliban leaders were pictured celebrating inside the presidential palace and Kabul airport was closed to commercial flights, with only military aircraft able to land.
The Taliban had taken control of the capital after police and security personnel changed into regular clothes and fled their posts. The Taliban also released thousands of prisoners from Pul-e-Charkhi and Bagram prisons, where Al Qa’ida and Islamic State fighters had been held.
Such was the lightning speed of the Taliban’s grip throughout the day, the Afghan minister for Education Rangina Hamidi told the BBC that she now feared for her life and believed that she may not survive the night.
She was astounded that Ghani left without informing the nation. “It is a betrayal,’’ she said. “I’m in shock, I’m in disbelief. I did not think that things would happen the way it did.
“And the saddest part is that I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect this from the President that I knew and a President who I trusted fully.”
Ms Hamidi said she hopes she won’t pay the price for gaining a government position. She said: “I might face consequences I never dreamed of, that’s the price we pay to make the world a little better.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected parallels being made with the rushed US exit from the US embassy in Vietnam in 1975, when staff was evacuated by helicopter from the building’s roof. He said the aim in Afghanistan was to target Al Qa’ida, which had been achieved.
“This is not Saigon,” said Mr Blinken, speaking to CNN. “We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11. And we succeeded in that mission.”
The US president, on holiday at Camp David, was left to defend the Biden administration against charges of incompetence in Washington DC.
The United Nations’ Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Afghanistan on Monday.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who has recalled parliament for Wednesday and chaired an emergency Cobra meeting on Sunday, said the international community had to have a unified position in regards to Afghanistan.
“We want a united position amongst all the like-minded as far as we can get one so that we do whatever we can to prevent Afghanistan lapsing back into being a breeding ground for terror,’’ he said.
Mr Johnson spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the UN Secretary General António Guterres to join up efforts to get foreign nationals, Afghan contractors and humanitarian workers to safety.
“The Prime Minister emphasised the need for a coordinated and concerted effort from the international community in the coming months to tackle the extremist threat and address the humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan,’’ Downing Street said.
“He stressed the importance of any recognition of a new Afghan Government happening on a joint, rather than unilateral, basis.
“The Prime Minister called for meetings of NATO’s North Atlantic Council and the UN Security Council to take place as soon as possible to enable high-level international discussions on these issues.”
The US embassy was evacuated and the Australian military prepared to rescue expatriates.
Australian special forces and infantry were preparing to evacuate Australian nationals and former local employees from Kabul after the Taliban breached the defences of the besieged capital of five million people.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the situation in Afghanistan remains “very dangerous” and “distressing”. On Monday morning, he told Sky News the government was working to transfer people out of the country, but said operational details remain sensitive.
“Already, since April, we’ve been able to extract some 430 Afghan locally engaged employees and their families. We already shut down our mission back in May to ensure that Australian diplomatic personnel were able to be safely exited from that region.
“I can’t discuss the operational details of what we’re doing with our partners, but the situation has been declining rapidly over the last few days. We’ll be meeting again this morning and getting an update on our operations,” he said.
It had initially appeared the Taliban was prepared to allow the allied evacuation to go ahead, declaring the Afghan government was responsible for the city’s security “until the transition takes place”.
The Australian Defence Force was putting in place the final preparations for an RAAF airlift from the country in co-operation with forces from the US, Britain and Canada.
The national security committee of cabinet gave the green light to the rescue mission at a meeting on Saturday amid talks with key allies, and was due to meet again on Monday morning to finalise details of the operation.
Australian special forces personnel already in the region were expected to join the operation, along with two infantry platoons and their commanders from the Townsville-based battle group.
Defence, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Home Affairs staff were working around the clock to support the operation, locating Australians and urgently processing paperwork for local support staff who were cleared to receive humanitarian visas. There are an unknown number of Australians in Afghanistan, including journalists, aid workers and security personnel.
With Taliban having declared victory, and inevitable comparison being made to the ignominious 1975 retreat from Vietnam, Mr Morrison declared the 41 Australians killed in the two-decade conflict had not died in vain.
“We are forever in their debt,” he said. “What we always seek to fight for, which is freedom, is always important in whatever cause, regardless of the outcome.” Mr Morrison said it was “a heartbreaking time”, particularly given “terrible oppression” faced by women and girls at the hands of the Taliban “We’re in no doubt about the character of the Taliban. We’re in no doubt about it. And that’s why today is such a difficult day,” he said.
About 60 soldiers drawn from the 1st and 3rd Royal Australian Regiments, together with battalion and company headquarters teams, were being readied late on Sunday to support a “non-combatant evacuation” mission.
Australian special forces soldiers based in the United Arab Emirates were expected to help with close personal protection, strategic communications and contingency planning in case the operation went wrong.
Sources said the first flights – likely to be RAAF C17 and C-130 transporters – were expected to arrive in Afghanistan early this week.
One source said the government was being cautious not to overcommit special forces troops, given their perceived overuse in the two-decade war and the war crimes allegations hanging over the Special Air Service Regiment.
US President Joe Biden deployed an additional 1000 troops on Sunday to help evacuate American citizens, bringing the number of US forces on the ground to 5000. But he insisted they would not be staying.
The preparations came as Taliban insurgents captured the key eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, and Mazar i-Sharif in the north, leaving the capital of Kabul as the last remaining territory under government control.
Inside Kabul, usually bustling neighbourhoods were deserted. The only queues were at ATMs, which had soon run out of cash as people rushed to withdraw money.
Those who could escape were either at the airport or making their way to it. With the Taliban now in control of all the highways leading to Kabul, the only way out was by air. In Canberra the Department of Home Affairs said it had granted more than 650 humanitarian visas to former locally engaged employees and their family members since April, and had fewer than 30 visas still to process.
But former Australian Army officers estimate there are about 200 Afghan interpreters who worked with the ADF, together with their family members, who are yet to have their visa applications processed, or who are seeking to appeal rejected applications.
A further 196 contracted security guards, together with about a dozen former aid workers, are also seeking to come to Australia with their families but have so far been barred from applying because they were not direct employees of the Australian government.
After the Taliban takeover of the southern cities of Tarin Kowt and Kandahar, from where Australian forces operated until December 2013, many of those who supported Australia’s war effort were effectively trapped.
Afghanistan scholar William Maley said the rescue mission was “far, far, far too late”. “It is something that should have been put in place weeks and weeks ago, when people were warning that the window to mount an effective extraction could close very suddenly,” Professor Maley said.
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