US Evacuated 82,300 From Kabul, Taliban Made ‘Commitments’ of Airport Access, Blinken Says

With roughly 4,000 US troops still in Kabul and the August 31 withdrawal deadline closing fast, the massive civilian airlift has just hours left before transport aircraft will have to start shuttling the troops and their equipment out instead.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the Taliban had made pledges both publicly and privately to continue to allow safe passage to Kabul’s main airport for US citizens, allies, and Afghan partners of the US after the August 31 deadline for total US withdrawal from the country. However, a Taliban source told Sputnik the militant group was only allowing foreigners to enter the airport.

“The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third-country nationals and Afghans at risk going forward past August 31,” Blinken told reporters.

“The United States, our allies and partners, and more than half of the world’s countries - 114 in all - issued a statement making it clear to the Taliban that they have a responsibility to hold to that commitment and provide safe passage for anyone who wishes to leave the country, not just for the duration of our evacuation and relocation mission, but for every day thereafter,” he added.

The chief diplomat added that since the airlift operation began on August 14, the day before the Taliban captured Kabul, more than 82,300 people have been flown out of the country, many of them going to Doha, Qatar, where US troops stationed there have reported disastrously inadequate facilities for the arriving refugees. Of those evacuated, between 40-45% have been women, Blinken noted.

However, on Tuesday, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that after tolerating more than a week of crowds camping outside Hamid Karzai International Airport hoping to leave the country, the de facto government was redirecting people to stay home until summoned to the airport and was only allowing foreigners to leave.

People wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 17, 2021.

© REUTERS / STRINGER

Blinken said that since August 14, about 4,500 Americans had been evacuated, as well as their families. They are also in contact with 500 others, giving them instructions on how to get to the airport safely. For the other 1,000 Americans believed to be in-country, Blinken said the State Department was aggressively reaching out to them on multiple channels to find out if they want to leave and if so, telling them how.

“There is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past August 31,” he noted.

Asked why the US cares about what the Taliban says if Washington hasn’t recognized the group as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, Blinken noted the US has been engaged in talks with the group for years in an attempt to organize a peaceful resolution of the conflict and that it will continue to do so now. He noted that recently, the Taliban named several figures representing the ousted Afghan government to a transitional governing council, including former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, former Afghan reconciliation chief Abdullah Abdullah, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who wasn’t a government figure but has opposed the Taliban since the civil war of the 1990s at the head of the Hizb-i-Islami militia.

“As a practical matter it advances our interests” to engage with the Taliban, Blinken noted, saying that an Afghan government that keeps its commitments to renouncing terrorism, protecting human rights, and allowing people to leave is “a government we can work with.”

If not, the US will use “every appropriate tool at our disposal” to make Afghanistan “a pariah,” he added.

This handout photo courtesy of US Marines Corps shows evacuees stage before boarding a C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, August 18, 2021

© AFP 2023 / NICHOLAS GUEVARA

The US negotiated a peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 that allowed an American withdrawal from Afghanistan; however, no similar agreement between the Taliban and the US-backed government in Kabul was ever reached, and as US troops pulled out, the talks fell apart and the Taliban launched a new offensive that quickly swept across the country. The US occupation began nearly 20 years ago in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which were carried out by al-Qaeda after being organized at its bases in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the US invasion, the Taliban reorganized in the countryside as an insurgent force, with the entry into Kabul on August 15 marking the final triumph of that campaign. Prior to the city’s capture, then-President Ashraf Ghani fled, reportedly carrying millions of dollars with him, seeking refuge in the United Arab Emirates.

The Taliban’s promises have come amid increased engagement with external parties, including with Iran, China, and Pakistan, suggesting the group may put a greater emphasis on international recognition than when they were previously in power from 1996 to 2001, when just four nations recognized their government. China has led the charge in offering infrastructure and other investment in the country if the Taliban denounces its support for Uyghur terrorist groups and proves it can build a stable and politically inclusive government.