Afghanistan will fall to the Taliaban again!

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Taleban declares ‘war is over’ as president and diplomats flee Kabul​

Taleban fighters on a Humvee in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug 15, 2021.
PHOTO: NYTIMES


Aug 16, 2021

KABUL (REUTERS) - The Taleban declared the war in Afghanistan was over after insurgents took control of the presidential palace in Kabul as US-led forces departed and Western nations scrambled on Monday (Aug 16) to evacuate their citizens.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday as the Islamist militants entered the city, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed while hundreds of Afghans desperate to leave flooded Kabul airport.
"Today is a great day for the Afghan people and the mujahideen. They have witnessed the fruits of their efforts and their sacrifices for 20 years," Mr Mohammad Naeem, the spokesman for the Taleban’s political office, told Al Jazeera TV. "Thanks to God, the war is over in the country."
It took the Taleban just over a week to seize control of the country after lightning sweep that ended in Kabul as Afghan forces, trained for years and equipped by the United States and others at a cost of billions of dollars, melted away.
Al Jazeera broadcast footage of what it said were Taleban commanders in the presidential palace with dozens of armed fighters.
Mr Naeem said the type and form of the new regime in Afghanistan would be made clear soon, adding the Taleban did not want to live in isolation and calling for peaceful international relations.

"We have reached what we were seeking, which is the freedom of our country and the independence of our people," he said. "We will not allow anyone to use our lands to target anyone, and we do not want to harm others."
A Taleban leader told Reuters the insurgents were regrouping from different provinces, and would wait until foreign forces had left the country before creating a new governance structure.
The leader, who requested anonymity, said Taleban fighters had been "ordered to allow Afghans to resume daily activities and do nothing to scare civilians."
"Normal life will continue in a much better way, that’s all I can say for now," he told Reuters via Whatsapp.

A US State Department spokesperson said early on Monday that all embassy personnel, including Ambassador Ross Wilson, had been transferred to Kabul airport to await evacuation and the American flag had been lowered and removed from the embassy compound.
Hundreds of Afghans invaded the airport's runways in the dark, pulling luggage and jostling for a place on one of the last commercial flights to leave the country before US forces took over air traffic control on Sunday.
"How can they hold the airport and dictate terms and conditions to Afghans?" said Ms Rakhshanda Jilali, a human rights activist who was trying to get to Pakistan.
"This is our airport but we are seeing diplomats being evacuated while we wait in complete uncertainty," Ms Jilali, who said she had received multiple death threats, told Reuters via Whatsapp from the airport.
More than 60 western countries, including the United States, Britain, France and Japan, issued a joint statement saying all Afghans and international citizens who wanted to leave the country must be allowed to depart.
"The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity," the statement said. "We in the international community stand ready to assist them."
Aid group Emergency said 80 wounded people had been brought to its hospital in Kabul, which was at capacity, and that it was only admitting people with life-threatening injuries.
In a Facebook post, Mr Ghani said he had left the country to avoid clashes with the Taleban that would endanger millions of residents of Kabul.
Some local social media users in Kabul branded Mr Ghani, who did not disclose his location, a coward for leaving them in chaos.
A tweet from the verified account of the Afghan Embassy in India said: "We are all banging our heads in shame."

Syariah​

In Washington, opponents of President Joe Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war, launched after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, said the chaos was caused by a failure of leadership.
Many Afghans fear the Taleban will return to past harsh practices in its imposition of syariah, or Islamic religious, law. During its rule from 1996 to 2001 rule, women could not work and punishments such as stoning, whipping and hanging were administered.
The militants sought to project a more moderate face, promising to respect women's rights and protect both foreigners and Afghans.
"We are ready to have a dialogue with all Afghan figures and will guarantee them the necessary protection," Mr Naeem told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Taleban and all other parties to exercise the utmost restraint, and expressed particular concern about the future of women and girls in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon authorised another 1,000 troops to help evacuate US citizens and Afghans who worked for them, a US official said.
A senior US defence official told Reuters on Sunday evening in Washington that about 500 people, mostly Americans, had so far been evacuated, and that the number would rise to 5,000 a day when all planned US forces are in Kabul.
European nations, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, also said they were working to get their citizens as well as some Afghan employees out of the country.
Russia said it saw no need to evacuate its embassy for the time being. Turkey said its embassy would continue operations.

American exit​

Asked if images of helicopters ferrying personnel were evocative of the US' departure from Vietnam in 1975, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News: "Let's take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon."
Mr Biden has faced rising domestic criticism after sticking to a plan, initiated by his Republican predecessor, Mr Donald Trump, to end the US military mission in Afghanistan by Aug 31.
In a statement on Sunday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell blamed Mr Biden for what he called a "shameful failure of American leadership".
"Terrorists and major competitors like China are watching the embarrassment of a superpower laid low," Mr McConnell said.
Mr Naeem said the Taleban would adopt a policy of non-interference in others’ affairs in return for non-interference in Afghanistan.
"We do not think that foreign forces will repeat their failed experience in Afghanistan once again."

 

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US lowers flag at Kabul embassy, secures Afghanistan's airport​

The shuttering of the US embassy comes nearly 20 years after the US returned following the defeat of the Taleban regime.
PHOTO: AFP


Aug 16, 2021

WASHINGTON (AFP) - 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, officials said on Sunday (Aug 15).
"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 US State Department said in a joint statement.
Almost all personnel from the embassy have relocated to the airport including the acting ambassador, Mr Ross Wilson, who remains in touch with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said a State Department spokesman.
"The American flag has been lowered in the US embassy compound and is now securely located with embassy staff," the spokesman 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 Taleban regime.
With stunning speed, the Taleban retook the country in little more than a week after US President Joe Biden began the final withdrawal of troops, closing America's longest war.

The US has sent 6,000 troops to the airport to fly out embassy personnel as well as Afghans who assisted the US 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.
On Monday "and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals", it continued.
Witnesses on social media have complained about disruptions to commercial flights as priority was given to the US airlifts out of Kabul.

 

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More than 60 countries say Afghans, others must be allowed to leave Afghanistan​

Afghans and travelers pass through checkpoints at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul ahead of the Taleban's arrival on Aug 15, 2021.
PHOTO: NYTIMES

Aug 16, 2021

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - More than 60 countries issued a joint statement saying Afghans and international citizens who want to leave Afghanistan must be allowed to depart and added that airports and border crossings must remain open, the US State Department said late on Sunday (Aug 15).
The United States government and countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar and Britain said in a joint statement that "those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan bear responsibility - and accountability - for the protection of human life and property, and for the immediate restoration of security and civil order".
It added that "the Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity. We in the international community stand ready to assist them".
The Taleban declared the war in Afghanistan was over after insurgents took control of the presidential palace in Kabul as US-led forces departed and Western nations scrambled on Monday to evacuate thousands of their citizens.
The Pentagon authorised another 1,000 troops to help evacuate US citizens and Afghans who worked for them from Kabul as the US government said it would assume air traffic control to facilitate the departure of thousands of Americans.
A joint statement from the State Department and Pentagon after the Taleban entered the Afghan capital confirmed that the US over the next 48 hours will "have expanded our security presence to nearly 6,000 troops, with a mission focused solely on facilitating these efforts and will be taking over air traffic control".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter "the United States joins the international community in affirming that Afghans and international citizens who wish to depart must be allowed to do so. Roads, airports, and border crossing must remain open, and calm must be maintained."
Other countries signing the joint statement include Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and Yemen, as well as the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the State Department said.

 

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Disaster in Afghanistan will follow US home​

Bret Stephens

Taleban fighters stand on a vehicle along the roadside in Kandahar on Aug 13, 2021.
PHOTO: AFP

Aug 16, 2021



(NYTIMES) - What on earth was Mr Joe Biden thinking - if, that is, he was thinking?
On July 8, the President defended his decision to withdraw all remaining United States forces from Afghanistan. After assuring Americans that "the drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way" and that "US support for the people of Afghanistan will endure", he took some questions.
Here are excerpts from the White House transcript.
Q: Is a Taleban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
The President: No, it is not.
Q: Why?

The President: Because you, the Afghan troops, have 300,000 well-equipped... as well equipped as any army in the world - and an air force against something like 75,000 Taleban. It is not inevitable…
Q: Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling -
The President: None whatsoever. Zero… The Taleban is not the South - the North Vietnamese Army. They're not - they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy...
Q: Mr President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there?
The President: Well, first of all, the mission hasn't failed, yet. There is in Afghanistan - in all parties, there's been corruption. The question is, can there be an agreement on unity of purpose? That - the jury is still out. But the likelihood there's going to be the Taleban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.
Mr Biden's heedlessness, on the cusp of a sweeping Taleban blitzkrieg that on Sunday saw them enter Kabul, will define his administration's first great fiasco.
It won't matter that he is carrying through on the shambolic withdrawal agreement negotiated last year by the Trump administration, with the eager support of Mr Donald Trump's isolationist base, and through the diplomatic efforts of Mr Trump's lickspittle secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
This is happening on Mr Biden's watch, at Mr Biden's insistence, against the advice of his senior military advisers and with Mr Biden's firm assurance to the American people that what has just come to pass would not come to pass.
Past presidents might have had a senior adviser resign in the wake of such a debacle, as Mr Les Aspin, then the Secretary of Defence, did after the 1993 Black Hawk Down episode in Somalia.
This time, Mr Biden owns the moment. He also owns the consequences. We should begin to anticipate them now.

Watch - if you have the stomach - videos of the aftermath of an attack in May on Afghan schoolgirls, which left 90 dead, or the massacre of 22 Afghan commandos in June, gunned down as they were surrendering, or Taleban fighters taunting an Afghan police officer, shortly before they kill him for the crime of making comic videos.
One Taleban official declared that their jihad was directed not against ordinary Afghans but only "against the occupiers and those who defend the occupiers". Yet the list of Afghans who fill that bill reaches into the thousands, if not higher.

Women will become chattel​

There are roughly 18 million women and girls in Afghanistan. They will now be subject to laws from the seventh century. They will not be able to walk about with uncovered faces or be seen in public without a male relative.
They will not be able to hold the kinds of jobs they have fought so hard to get over the last 20 years: journalists, teachers, parliamentarians, entrepreneurs. Their daughters will not be allowed to go to school or play sports or consent to the choice of a husband.

Afghanistan will become a magnet to jihadists everywhere​

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taleban's deputy leader, is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists. Do not expect him to change his spots, even if he claimed otherwise last year in a Times guest essay.
"The relationship between the Taleban and Al-Qaeda will get stronger," Mr Saad Mohseni, the head of the Afghan news and media company Moby, said on Saturday. "Why should the Taleban fear the Americans anymore? What's the worst that could happen? Another invasion?
"These guys are going to be the most belligerent, arrogant Islamist movement on the planet," Mr Mohseni added. "They are going to be the Mecca for any young radical of Islamic heritage or convert. It's going to inspire people. It's a godsend for any radical, violent group."

What happens in Afghanistan won't stay there​

The country most immediately at risk from an ascendant Taleban is neighbouring Pakistan. After years of Islamabad giving sanctuary and support for the Afghan Taleban (as long as they attacked coalition forces), Pakistan must now fear that the next regime in Kabul will give sanctuary and support for the Pakistani Taleban.
There may be poetic justice in this, but the prospect of fundamentalist forces destabilising a regime with an estimated 160 nuclear warheads is an unparalleled global nightmare.
Short of this, the calamity in Afghanistan is a recipe for another wave of migrants, one that will wash over Europe's shores and provoke a populist backlash. "We're going to see 20 Viktor Orbans emerge," warned Mr Mohseni, referring to the Hungarian strongman and Tucker Carlson BFF.

America's geopolitical position will be gravely damaged​

What kind of ally is the US? In the last several years, the US has maintained a relatively small force in Afghanistan, largely devoted to providing surveillance, logistics and air cover for Afghan forces while taking minimal casualties.
Any American president could have maintained this position almost indefinitely - with no prospect of defeating the Taleban but none of being routed by them, either.
In other words, we had achieved a good-enough solution for a nation we could afford to neither save nor lose. We squandered it anyway.
Now, in the aftermath of Saigon redux, every enemy will draw the lesson that the US is a feckless power, with no lasting appetite for defending the Pax Americana that is still the basis for world order. And every ally - Taiwan, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Israel, Japan - will draw the lesson that it is on its own in the face of its enemies. The Biden Doctrine means the burial of the Truman Doctrine.
But didn't we have to leave Afghanistan sometime? So goes a counterargument. Yes, though we've been in Korea for 71 years, at far higher cost, and the world is better off for it.
But wasn't the Afghan government corrupt and inept? Yes, but at least that government wasn't massacring its own citizens or raising the banner of jihad.
But aren't American casualties unacceptable? They are surely tragic. But so is squandering the sacrifice of so many Americans who fought the Taleban bravely and nobly - and, as it turns out, for nothing.
But is there any reason we should care more about the fate of Afghans than we do of desperate people elsewhere? Yes, because our inability to help everyone, everywhere doesn't relieve us of the obligation to help someone, somewhere - and because America's power and reputation in the world is also a function of being a beacon of confidence and hope.
Now these arguments belong to the past. The war in Afghanistan isn't just over. It's lost. A few Americans may cheer this humiliation, and many more will shrug at it. But the consequences of defeat are rarely benign for nations, no matter how powerful they otherwise appear to be.
America's enemies, great and small, will draw conclusions from our needless surrender, just as they will about the frighteningly oblivious president who brought it about.

 

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Shops close, security guards flee in Afghan capital Kabul​

People run towards the Kabul Airport Terminal, after Taleban insurgents took control of the presidential palace in Kabul on Aug 16, 2021.
PHOTO: JAWAD SUKHANYAR/REUTERS

Aug 16, 2021

KABUL (REUTERS) - Kabul's streets were deserted early on Monday (Aug 16), a day after Taleban insurgents took over the Afghanistan capital without a fight, but the airport was jammed with hundreds of civilians trying to flee.
Government offices were empty, residents said.
Unverified pictures on social media showed hundreds of people scampering with their luggage towards the safety of the airport terminal with the sound of gunfire breaking out. There was no immediate word of any casualties.
United States troops deployed at the airport to safeguard the evacuation of US troops had fired in the air to deter hundreds of civilians running onto the tarmac to try to board a plane.
"The crowd was out of control," a US official told Reuters by phone. "The firing was done only to defuse the chaos."
The nearby Wazir Akbar Khan embassy district was deserted with almost all diplomats and their families either flown out of the city or at the airport awaiting a flight.

There were few guards left at the checkpoints in the usually heavily fortified area - some motorists were getting out of their cars to lift barriers at the checkpoints before driving through.
"It is strange to sit here and see empty streets, no more busy diplomatic convoys, big cars with guns mounted," said Mr Gul Mohammed Hakim, one the city's ubiquitous naan (bread) makers who has a shop in the area.
"I will be here baking bread, but will earn very small amounts of money. The security guards who were my friends, they are gone."
He had no customers yet, he said, and was still heating his tandoor (clay oven) in anticipation.

"My first concern was to grow my beard and how to grow it fast," Mr Hakim added. "I also checked with my wife if there were enough burqas for her and the girls."
During the Taleban's 1996 to 2001 rule, men were not permitted to trim their beards and women were required to wear the all-enveloping burqa cloak in public.
In the city's Chicken Street, the scores of shops for Afghan carpets, handicraft and jewellery, as well as small cafes, were closed.
Mr Sherzad Karim Stanekzai, who owns a carpet and textiles store, said he decided to sleep inside his shuttered shop to protect his goods.

"I am in a complete state of shock. The Taleban entering that scared me, but (President Ashraf) Ghani leaving all of us in this situation has been the worst," he said. "I lost three brothers in seven years in this war, now I have to protect my business."
He said had no idea where his next customers would come from. "I know there will no foreigners, no international people who will now come to Kabul," he said.
A Taleban leader said his fighters had been "ordered to allow Afghans to resume daily activities and do nothing to scare civilians".
"Normal life will continue in a much better way, that's all I can say for now," he told Reuters via WhatsApp.

 

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Biden's 'America's Back' vow torched as Taleban overrun Kabul​

Taleban fighters in Kabul, on Aug 15, 2021.
PHOTO: NYTIMES

Aug 16, 2021

WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - Just last month, United States President Joe Biden defended his Afghanistan pullout by saying that "the likelihood there's going to be the Taleban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely".
The images of Taleban fighters inside the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday (Aug 15), after a series of provincial capitals fell in rapid succession and the nation's President fled showed just how wrong Mr Biden's prediction has been.
Instead of an American-trained Afghan military staving off Taleban militants for months or longer, the US' longest war is ending with a hasty evacuation of diplomats from Kabul's airport.
Their sudden departure is raising difficult questions about Mr Biden's approach to the conflict, and creating a spiralling political calamity for a president who had promised to be a sure-handed steward of US foreign policy.
And while Americans were left recalling the harried final days of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, the US' biggest adversaries saw a potent sign of America's vulnerabilities and shaky claim to leadership after the tumult of the Trump years.
Even some close allies could not hide their frustration.

"Nobody wants Afghanistan, once again, to be a breeding ground for terror," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.
"It's fair to say the US decision to pull out has accelerated things."
For Mr Biden, the collapse was a punishing blow that may only worsen with time.
The President had spent the early months of his administration basking in the glow of a ramped-up vaccination drive and budget and infrastructure deals meant to heal a struggling American economy.

The scenes out of Kabul will undermine those accomplishments.
"It couldn't look any worse, and that will have an impact," said Mr Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
"It's very easy to say Donald Trump set us up for this and we're just simply following through, but really any responsible leader who was listening to all of the advice he was getting would have taken a more measured approach."
For all the flaws in the deal former president Donald Trump signed with the Taleban last year - following talks in Qatar in which Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government was sidelined - Mr Biden delayed the plan he inherited by just three months.
Then his administration seemed caught off guard when it became clear that Afghan translators and other allies who wanted to be evacuated were not going to be out of the country before US troops left.

Domestically, the political outrage over Afghanistan's fall from Republicans was predictable - many didn't support Mr Trump's plans to withdraw, either - but Democrats were angry, too.
"Given the number of American lives lost and the number of soldiers who came back with life-changing injuries, it's devastating to watch 20 years of US support for the Afghanistan army amount to almost nothing," Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.
Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who often clashed with Mr Trump, said it was a "shameful, Saigon-like abandonment of Kabul".

'Decided to lose'​

"History must be clear about this: American troops didn't lose this war - Donald Trump and Joe Biden deliberately decided to lose," Mr Sasse added.
With 6,000 US troops expected back in Afghanistan guarding its airport this week, Mr Biden will have much to answer for, including: How could the US with all its military might and intelligence infrastructure so entirely fail to see how quickly the Taleban would take over the country? How could an Afghan military built up with more than US$80 billion (S$108.47 billion) in US taxpayer support collapse in just days?
After he announced his decision in April to withdraw forces by next month, Mr Biden said the US would maintain an "over the horizon" capability to step back into Afghanistan if needed to counter terrorists.
But America's mission in Afghanistan, realistically or not, was long pitched as being about more than going after the perpetrators of the Sept 11 attacks.
Aid workers and contractors, backed by American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military forces, poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and efforts to wean Afghan farmers off poppy production, the basis of the opium trade.

Female rights​

The foreign military presence also helped open up more space for girls and women. PHOTO: NYTIMES

The foreign military presence also helped open up more space for girls and women, whose plight under the Taleban's previous rule was roundly condemned and whose futures have never looked so precarious.
It was not just America's longest war, but a costly one as well - four presidents in succession spent nearly US$1 trillion on a far-off conflict that killed about 2,400 American soldiers, but none until now found a way to leave.
In justifying his withdrawal, Mr Biden said there was little to be gained from staying longer.
That was a perspective the Taleban knew they could capitalise on if they could sustain themselves. And over 20 years, they rebuilt themselves despite an American troop presence that swelled to 100,000 at one point.
"Ultimately, it's up to the Afghans themselves," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
"It's up to the Afghan government, it's up to the Taleban to decide the way forward for the country, including Kabul."

Qatar talks​

In the end, the result was a US government looking like it got outplayed by Taleban leaders who told them what they wanted to hear: We'll stop killing Americans and you'll get your troops out.
Mr Trump's administration, in talks sealed by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, agreed, and the deal was handed to Mr Biden when he took office.
"Everyone's passing around this burning bag of crap and if you didn't set it down, you didn't have to acknowledge what it was," said Dr Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security who deployed twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq.
"The bright spot in this day of calamity is a president finally being willing to take ownership of a foreign policy failure even if it wasn't his own design."
But, for the time being, as the Taleban re-entered Kabul and President Ghani went into exile, one conclusion seemed hard to avoid: Mr Biden's administration mismanaged a withdrawal that was always going to be complicated.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin insisted in a briefing to lawmakers on Sunday that US troops would have been attacked by the Taleban if they had not withdrawn.
But that only raised further questions about why the world's most potent military was being run out of the country by less well-armed insurgents.
"Ultimately, there was a way to handle this withdrawal responsibly, slowly - helping and guiding the Afghan security forces that America built up over 20 years - but Biden chose the quicker route, having lost patience with this war," said Dr Madiha Afzal, a Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"That precipitousness served as the final straw, ending in what we have just witnessed, the rapid collapse of Afghanistan to the Taleban."

 

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Britain not going back to Afghanistan even as Taleban seizes control​

Britain's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the military side of Kabul airport was secure.
PHOTO: REUTERS

Aug 16, 2021

LONDON (REUTERS) - The Taleban is in control of Afghanistan and British and Nato forces will not be returning to fight the insurgents, Britain's defence minister said on Monday (Aug 16).
"I acknowledge that the Taleban (is) in control of the country," Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News. "I mean, you don't have to be a political scientist to spot that's where we're at."
Asked if Britain and Nato would return to Afghanistan, Mr Wallace said: "That's not on the cards... we're going to go back".
Mr Wallace said the military side of Kabul airport was secure and that Britain was doing everything it could to evacuate British citizens and Afghans with links to Britain.
"Our target is... about 1,200 to 1,500 exit a day in the capacity of our aeroplanes, and we'll keep that flow," he said.
Britain has relocated its embassy to Kabul airport from the city. Asked what he would feel to see the Taleban flag flying over the former British embassy building in Kabul, Mr Wallace said: "Symbolically, it's not what any of us wanted."

Mr Wallace said it was not yet the right time to decide on whether to recognise the Taleban as the Afghan government.
"I think there is a lot of more to come before those decisions are made," he said.
"The proof of the pudding will be obviously in their actions rather than their rhetoric."

 

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Kabul airport mobbed as Afghans make a desperate dash to exit​

The bedlam at the airport came just hours after Taleban leaders ordered their fighters into Kabul to maintain order.
PHOTO: AFP

Aug 16, 2021


KABUL (AFP) - United States troops fired shots into the air and all commercial flights were cancelled at Kabul airport on Monday (Aug 16) as thousands of Afghans crowded onto the tarmac in the hope of catching any flight out after the weekend Taleban takeover.
Dramatic footage posted on social media showed a scene of chaos on the runway, with civilians frantically clambering up an already overcrowded and buckling set of air-stairs.
It was a desperate bid to board a parked passenger plane and escape the city a day after the government's collapse.
As a crowd of hundreds watched on, those who successfully climbed the stairs helped others up, while some hung from the stair railings by their hands.
Panicked families trying to flee the capital carried overpacked luggage, with frightened children in tow.
The situation caused such a commotion that US troops fired into the air to restore order and all commercial flights were cancelled.

"I feel very scared here. They are firing lots of shots into the air," the witness said, asking not to be named in case it jeopardised his chances of leaving.
The US State Department said American troops had secured the perimeter of the airport as they evacuate embassy employees and thousands of Afghans who worked for Washington's interests since they toppled the Taleban in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks.
The US embassy in Kabul tweeted to tell American nationals and Afghans to "not travel to the airport".
But thousand more Afghans - even some with no links to the US-led coalition - showed up in the hope of getting out, even without tickets or visas for foreign destinations.

The bedlam at the airport came just hours after Taleban leaders ordered their fighters into Kabul to maintain order as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
"We are afraid to live in this city and we are trying to flee Kabul," said a 25-year old man who also asked to be identified only as Ahmed.
Many of the arrivals were fuelled by rumours, or fake news spread on social media.
"I read on Facebook that Canada is accepting asylum from Afghanistan," said Ahmed.
"Since I served in the army... there is danger. The Taleban would definitely target me."


The US said it had evacuated its entire embassy staff to the airport, but they were being kept separate from those without permission to travel.
Other videos posted on social media also showed desperate scenes overnight of people fighting to cram into the back of a cargo plane.
Outside of the airport, an uneasy calm held over Kabul as armed Taleban insurgents patrolled the streets and set up checkpoints.
In a message posted to social media, Taleban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar called on his fighters to remain disciplined after taking control of the city.
"Now it's time to test and prove, now we have to show that we can serve our nation and ensure security and comfort of life," he said.
The scenes at the airport were reminiscent of the chaos that enveloped Washington's earlier bungled escape from Vietnam in 1975, even as Washington swatted away the comparison.
"This is not Saigon," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a broadcaster on Sunday.