Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the US military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior US official said yesterday.

This has added a new complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its swift fall to the Taliban.

The official said small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians will be given specific instructions on what to do, including movement to transit points where they can be gathered up by the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

Tens of thousands of people waited nervously yesterday to see whether the US would deliver on president Joe Biden’s new pledge to evacuate all Afghans who aided the war effort. Meanwhile, the Taliban leader arrived in Kabul for talks with the group’s leadership on forming a new government.

Time is running out ahead of Biden’s August 31 deadline to withdraw most remaining US troops, and the president on Friday night did not commit to extending it. He faces growing criticism as videos depict pandemonium and occasional violence outside Kabul airport, and as vulnerable Afghans who fear the Taliban’s retaliation send desperate pleas not to be left behind.

In a new security warning, the US embassy yesterday told citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without “individual instructions from a US government representative”, citing potential security threats outside its gates. And yet desperate crowds remained outside its concrete barriers, clutching documents and sometimes stunned-looking children, blocked from flight by coils of razor wire.

Tens of thousands of translators and other Afghan wartime helpers, along with their close family members, are seeking evacuation.

Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — who negotiated the religious movement’s 2020 peace deal with the US — was in Kabul for meetings with the group’s leadership, a Taliban official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the news media.

Baradar’s presence is significant because he has often held talks with former Afghan leaders such as ex-president Hamid Karzai.

Afghan officials familiar with talks held in the capital say the Taliban have said they will not make announcements on their government until the August 31 deadline passes.

Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, tweeted that he and Mr Karzai met yesterday with the Taliban’s acting governor for Kabul, who “assured us that he would do everything possible for the security of the people” of the city.

Evacuations continued, though some outgoing flights were far from full because of the airport chaos, Taliban checkpoints and bureaucratic challenges. A German flight on Friday night carried 172 evacuees, but two subsequent flights carried out just seven and eight people, respectively.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said around 1,000 people a day were being evacuated amid a “stabilisation” at the airport. But yesterday, a former Royal Marine-turned charity director in Afghanistan said the situation was getting worse, not better.

So far 13 countries have agreed to host at-risk Afghans at least temporarily. Another 12 have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees.

Remaining in Afghanistan means adapting to life under the Taliban, who say they seek an “inclusive, Islamic” government, will offer full amnesty to those who worked for the government and have become more moderate since they last held power from 1996 to 2001.  

But many Afghans fear a return to the Taliban’s harsh rule in the late 1990s, when the group barred women from attending school or working outside the home, banned TV and music, and held public executions.
 

© Associated Press