Chaos enveloped the international airport in Kabul on Monday, with U.S. troops trying to maintain order while throngs of people rushed the tarmac and large crowds pushed against the facility’s outer gates amid mounting collective panic a day after the Taliban swept back into power in the Afghan capital.
The U.S. Marines suspended all flights after at least seven people were killed, including two armed individuals shot by American forces and several Afghans who reportedly fell from the wheel wells of a U.S. military transport plane as it took off in a scene that underscored the desperation gripping the country.
Despite the airport mayhem, the streets of central Kabul were relatively calm. Taliban fighters, including many armed with American rifles, cruised the captured capital atop pickup trucks for a second day, claiming they had no orders to exact revenge against ordinary Afghans or officials of the former U.S.-backed government.
Those assurances fell largely fell on deaf ears amid fear that a civil war looms and that militants of the radical insurgency soon will be restoring strict theocratic controls and targeting anyone who does not conform to their hard-line Islamist demands.
What lay ahead for the former government and its institutions was uncertain Monday night. The Afghan ambassador to the United Nations, a man appointed by the former U.S.-backed government whose status was uncertain, warned hours earlier that the Taliban could not be trusted and that action must be taken to “prevent Afghanistan descending into a civil war and becoming a pariah state.”
Ghulam Isaczai told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that he was “speaking on behalf of millions of people in Afghanistan whose fate hangs in the balance and are faced with an extremely uncertain future,” including “millions of Afghan girls and women who are about to lose their freedom to go to school, to work and to participate in the political, economic and social life of the country.”
“We have [already] seen gruesome images of Taliban’s mass executions of military personnel and target killing of civilians in Kandahar and other big cities,” Mr. Isaczai said. “Kabul residents are reporting the Taliban have already started house-to-house searches in some neighborhoods, registering names and looking for people in their target list.
“Kabul residents are living in absolute fear right now,” he said.
Damage control
As he described the sobering scene, the Biden administration spent a second day in damage-control mode. The president addressed the nation while his national security advisers spent much of the day urging calm and claiming the U.S. military would secure and evacuate thousands from the airport in Kabul.
White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer told CNN that the U.S. military would work to evacuate women, judges and other Afghans who could “be in the crosshairs” of the Taliban.
“These are desperate people,” Mr. Finer said. “These are people who quite rightly are looking for a way out.”
President Biden vowed that 6,000 U.S. troops he ordered back into Afghanistan in recent days would oversee a swift and sweeping evacuation mission. He said U.S. forces would then withdraw.
Questions swirled over how long the mission will take and where the throngs of Afghans descending on the airport will be flown. Concerns also spread that the airport could become the scene of a clash between Taliban and American forces.
Officials said roughly 2,500 U.S. troops had arrived and secured the airport’s perimeter. Gen. Frank F. McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, reportedly met face-to-face with Taliban leaders in Qatar on Sunday and warned that the U.S. military would respond forcefully to defend the airport if necessary.
But the presence of the Taliban leadership in Qatar, apparently unable to fly into the airport in Kabul to join the militant group’s ground commanders who seized the presidential palace Sunday, added to uncertainty over what will unfold in the days to come.
The Associated Press reported that Gen. McKenzie and the Taliban agreed to communicate to ensure the airport evacuation could continue without interference.
Fearing a ’free-for-all’
Biden administration officials said the U.S. will provide security at the airport and select people for flights based on existing criteria. During his appearance on CNN, Mr. Finer said it won’t be a free-for-all and that people cannot just show up at the airport.
The deputy national security adviser also warned of “severe consequences” from the U.S. military if the Taliban interfere with efforts to get prioritized Afghans from outside provinces to the airport.
A joint statement from the State and Defense departments pledged to speed up visa processing for Afghans who worked with American troops and officials in particular. High-profile Afghan women, journalists and Afghans who have worked with Western governments and nonprofits are among those who fear Taliban targeting for Western ways or ties.
A separate statement circulated by the governments of more than a dozen countries said an international effort is underway “to secure, and call on all parties to respect and facilitate, the safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave the country.”
“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,” the multigovernmental statement said.
Those words stood in stark contrast with reports that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled Kabul as the Taliban entered, was struggling to find a haven in neighboring Tajikistan. The Washington Times was unable to confirm reports that Mr. Ghani had flown to Oman on Monday after he was denied entry into Tajikistan or that, according to Russian sources, he was carrying a large amount of money when he fled.
Unease soared among the governments of other Afghan neighbors that share cultural and political ties to Afghanistan. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers fled in 22 military planes and 24 helicopters to Uzbekistan over the weekend, including one aircraft that collided with an escorting Uzbek fighter jet, causing both to crash, according to a report by Reuters citing Uzbek officials.
The New York Times cited the Tajik Ministry of Emergency Situations as saying three Afghan military planes and two helicopters carrying 143 soldiers and airmen were allowed to land there after transmitting distress signals.
Dozens of passenger planes were allowed to take off from Kabul during the hours leading up to the suspension of flights Monday. Several reportedly carried asylum-seekers to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Rivals weigh in
U.S. adversaries have pounced on the opportunity to portray developments of the past two days as a major black eye for the nation and a sign that American security guarantees cannot be trusted.
“The military defeat and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan should become an opportunity to revive life, security and lasting peace in the country,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
China said it will deepen ties with Afghanistan’s new rulers.
“The Taliban have repeatedly expressed their hope to develop good relations with China, and that they look forward to China’s participation in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday.
Russian officials offered similar commentary. Zamir Kabulov, the special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, said Moscow sees “no direct threat to our allies in Central Asia” from the Taliban takeover.
Russia’s Tass News Agency said Mr. Kabulov emphasized during an interview on Russian television that Moscow had established contact with the Taliban movement in advance. “We have long built ties and contact with the Taliban movement,” he said. “The fact that we laid the groundwork for a conversation with Afghanistan’s new authorities in advance is a Russian foreign policy achievement, which we will take advantage of fully to ensure Russia’s long-term interests.”
The Biden administration, meanwhile, appeared to be scrambling to contact officials in Beijing and Moscow amid concerns that China and Russia might stymie an international consensus on isolating the Taliban should conditions worsen.
The State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken by phone with his Chinese and Russian counterparts about “developments in Afghanistan, including the security situation,” after the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and repositioning of American diplomats to the city’s airport.
Russian and Chinese officials have said their own embassies in Kabul were not being evacuated.
Russia’s foreign ministry said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Mr. Blinken “discussed the situation in Afghanistan after the flight of the country’s leader, the disintegration of the existing government bodies and a de facto ongoing regime change.”
It said the two agreed “to continue consultations” that would involve China, Pakistan, other “interested nations” and the Untied Nations to try to press for a dialogue between the Taliban and political factions from the fallen Afghan government.
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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