Live updates US evacuations from Afghanistan face new roadblocks as Taliban co-founder arrives in Kabul

Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered the Taliban’s top political leader, arrived in Kabul on Saturday as the Islamist group eyes the formation of a new government.

Baradar, who served as a negotiator for peace talks in Doha, Qatar, and is the likely next leader of Afghanistan, is in the capital to consult with “his friends” about “what type of government will be in Kabul,” Taliban official Zabiullah Mujahid told The Washington Post, adding that no decision has yet been made about what form it will take.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security warning Saturday, urging Americans “to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative,” and the Pentagon hinted at the possibility of expanded evacuation operations beyond the airport perimeter.

Officials fear the threat of an Islamic State attack targeting evacuation efforts, the Associated Press reported.

Here’s what to know

President Biden met with his national security team Saturday to discuss evacuation logistics and security threats, including the Islamic State, according to a White House official.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the toppled government, met the acting Taliban governor of Kabul on Saturday.

At the Kabul airport, chaotic and violent scenes continue to unfold as thousands attempt to evacuate the country despite Taliban fighters blocking their path. Read a Post reporter’s account of the treacherous escape.

Pentagon: Situation around Kabul airport ‘changes almost by the hour’; U.S. citizens still being processedLink copied

In a news briefing Saturday, Pentagon officials said the Kabul airport “remains secure” but that the situation outside the perimeter of the airport “changes almost by the hour.” They also stressed that U.S. military commanders were continuing to process credentialed Americans attempting to leave the country, despite an alert the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued Saturday that advised citizens to avoid traveling to the airport.

The embassy’s alert warned U.S. citizens “to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.” The guidance was issued in response to “potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport” and came as Taliban leaders gathered in Kabul to discuss forming a new government.

Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor told reporters Saturday that he was not “directly” familiar with the embassy’s alert.

“We are continuing to process people throughout the last 24 hours,” Taylor said. “The commanders are metering how many people come in and out of the gate. … There has been no reported change to the current enemy situation in and around the airport at this time.”

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby declined to discuss any specific threats that might be targeting the Kabul airport or U.S. citizens attempting to leave Afghanistan. Kirby instead stressed repeatedly that the U.S. military’s mission was the “noncombatant evacuation” of as many people out of Afghanistan as safely as quickly as possible.

“I think we’ve been very honest about the fact that we know we’re aware that we’re fighting against both time and space,” Kirby said. “That’s the race that we’re in right now. And we’re trying to do this as quickly and as safely as possible. I’m not going to speculate about whether windows are closing or opening. We’re focused on accomplishing this mission as fast as we can.”

Kirby said the Pentagon was “aware of sporadic cases” where people were not being allowed past Taliban checkpoints â€" and “where there is some harassment going on and, yes, some physical violence has occurred.” He said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has made it clear in his talks with Taliban commanders that such violence is “unacceptable.”

“We’ve certainly made our concerns known,” Kirby said. “And I think equally frustrating is the fact that … not every Taliban fighter either got the word or decided to obey the word. And I can’t speak to Taliban command and control. But by and large, and for the most part, Americans with their credentials are being given the passage they need through the checkpoints and are getting onto the field again, security conditions permitting.”

Ruby Mellen contributed to this report.

Afghan evacuees cram into hot Qatar hangar, facing an uncertain future Link copied

DOHA, Qatar â€" The crush of civilians fleeing Afghanistan has threatened to overwhelm the air base here where most have been flown, leaving many evacuees crammed in a sweltering hangar without adequate toilets and showers as U.S. officials scramble to expand capacity and open new receiving points in the Middle East and Europe.

The military temporarily halted flights from the Kabul airport Friday when conditions at the base in Qatar threatened to reach dangerous levels. Civilians inside the base said some people had been moved to trailers and tents in other parts of the facility and others boarded onward flights to processing facilities in the United States and elsewhere. Flights to Doha had resumed by Friday night.

“I haven’t slept for four days and four nights,” said Sayed Harris Khelwati, 31, who arrived Wednesday night on an American C-17. “There aren’t cots for everybody. You just lay down where you can.”

Khelwati, who was reached by phone Saturday, said conditions had been dire as arrivals poured in faster than officials could move them through. He posted a video showing nearly every square foot of the massive structure packed with people sitting, squatting and lying among their plastic bags and luggage.

At various times, some evacuees tried to rush to the front of processing lines as military personnel struggled to maintain order, he said. At the peak of crowding Friday night, when it was 94 degrees outside the hangar, some evacuees held up signs reading “I can’t breathe,” he said.

Conditions had eased slightly Saturday, he said, seemingly from a combination of faster processing and the slowed flow of new arrivals.

A U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer specifics, said the military has increased the number of portable toilets for evacuees and ordered 175 more, increased the number of beds in air-conditioned space to 3,000, and increased the delivery of water bottles.

Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, said officials are working with other military bases, the State Department, Customs and Border Protection and other countries to find places to house the evacuees. They are sending more material to the Qatar base, including sanitation facilities and air-conditioned tents.

Most of the evacuees have arrived on crowded military flights, many without belongings or passports. Those with U.S. passports were moved through the fastest, according to journalists who witnessed the process, with some being put on buses for outbound flights almost immediately.

Hundreds arrive in Virginia after leaving AfghanistanLink copied

Hundreds of Afghan refugees and special-immigrant visa recipients arrived overnight at Northern Virginia Community College after a harrowing journey evacuating Afghanistan.

And by Saturday morning, a swarm of volunteers had arrived at the Annandale campus to help. They brought clothes and toiletries, toys and diapers. By noon, the piles of donations had grown so high that volunteers had to turn some away.

Many of the volunteers were Afghan Americans in Virginia â€" many worried about their own family members still stranded in Kabul.

“We just want to share their pain,” said one volunteer named Nasrul, who gave only his first name because his siblings’ lives are still in danger in Afghanistan. “We are not in Afghanistan, but we are in sorrow.”

Maybe, he said, they could help the new arrivals relax. “At least these lives are safe now.”

One was a 32-year-old father who had recently arrived with his 18-month-old son.

He had worked with a Pakistani cargo company working with the U.S. military, and he got a special-immigrant visa.

He waited two days outside the gate to get into the Kabul airport â€" but despite his pleas, he could not take his wife and daughter because they did not have the proper documents, said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was still worried about their safety.

“It is difficult to be with a baby and be his mother and his father,” he said. “No one can feel my sensation. I repeatedly, repeatedly cried â€" this is his time to be with his mother.”

But he knew his baby could not remain in Afghanistan, so he knew he had to go.

“He still asks me for his mom,” the father said, standing outside an entrance to the community college to get some air.

He said that the plane arrived at 2 p.m. Friday, but that they did not disembark until 10 p.m. After coronavirus tests and immigration processing, they were taken to the college.

A spokeswoman for the college said they were limited in the information they could share. She said that the college was a transfer point, and that some Afghans may spend two hours or two nights before traveling into their next location.

Buses arrived about 1 p.m. to take some of the arrivals to an unspecified base.

U.S. cargo plane sets record for most people flown in C-17Link copied

A U.S. cargo plane flew more than 800 people from Afghanistan, 200 more than originally announced, on Sunday, breaking the record of the most people flown in that model of cargo plane, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command tweeted Friday that the C-17 Globemaster III transported 823 Afghan citizens from Hamid Karzai International Airport on Sunday, a record for the aircraft. The initial count of 640, the Air Force said, only “included only adults. 183 children were also aboard.”

Since the Taliban took over Kabul last week, the Afghan capital’s international airport has been seized by chaos, with desperate civilians trying to escape. The photo of refugees packed aboard the cargo plane was shared widely and emerged as an emblematic image of efforts to flee the Taliban.

The plane wasn’t meant to take on so many passengers, but people poured into the aircraft through its half-open ramp, Defense One reported. Instead of forcing them off, “the crew made the decision to go,” a defense official told the news organization.

Key updatePentagon hints at expanded operations in Kabul, as evacuations face new hurdles and roadblocksLink copied

The Pentagon’s spokesman strongly hinted Saturday that U.S. troops could begin leaving the airport perimeter to facilitate the safe passage of American citizens and Afghans approved for evacuation through the Taliban-controlled areas just outside.

“Look, without getting predictive here, we have troops in a very dynamic environment, a very perilous mission, and they understand that â€" and they also understand why they’re there, they’re there to help people,” spokesman John Kirby said, after indicating there had been no U.S. military operations outside the airport perimeter over the past 24 hours. “I’m not going to rule out that if they see a moment, if they see an opportunity to do it, they won’t do it.”

The Biden administration is under pressure to push its Afghanistan evacuation efforts beyond the Kabul airport after European forces crossed Taliban lines and entered the city to rescue civilians earlier this week.

According to Pentagon officials, only 2,500 of the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Americans remaining in Afghanistan have been evacuated since the rescue operation began on Aug. 14. A total of approximately 17,000 people were brought out of the country in that period of time, they said.

Yet in the past 24 hours, the pace of military-sponsored departures appears to have dipped â€" from approximately 2,000 evacuations per day over the past few days, to 1,600 on six C-17 aircraft. Military officials said the reduction was because of a glut of evacuees at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, who needed to be taken to other locations â€" including Ramstein Air Base in Germany â€" to make room for new arrivals. They also added that three planes of evacuees had landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

An additional 2,200 people left Afghanistan on 32 charter flights over the past 24 hours, officials said.

Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor said that over the next 24 hours, military officials expect “to get back into numbers we saw the day before.” But even those numbers â€" approximately 2,000 per day â€" fell short of the 5,000 to 9,000 figure that Pentagon leaders have said they have the capability to evacuate daily.

Meanwhile, the situation outside the airport gates has become more dangerous. Kirby said Saturday that although the U.S. commanders continue to be in touch with Taliban leaders to insist on safe passage for U.S.-approved individuals, “what appears to be happening is not every Taliban fighter either got the word or decided to obey the word.” Americans with credentials are getting through the checkpoints without incident “by and large and for the most part,” he added.

‘America First Light’: Afghanistan withdrawal brings a Biden Doctrine into focus Link copied

President Biden this past week laid out a defiant defense of his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, a reversal of two decades of U.S. engagement that crystallizes an emerging Biden Doctrine â€" a cautious worldview that prizes alliances but also narrows the aperture of American influence.

America, with plenty of rebuilding to do at home, should no longer be willing to intervene in languishing foreign conflicts, Biden said. The lives of American troops are not worth risking in those battles, he added, and nation-building is a non-starter. That is a view broadly shared by Americans in both parties even amid the scenes of chaos and heartbreak at the Kabul airport in recent days, as desperate Afghans try to flee a Taliban takeover.

“What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al-Qaeda gone?” Biden asked Friday, overstating the case that the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attacks has been extinguished. He added moments later: “You’ve known my position for a long, long time. It’s time to end this war.”

Americans have soured on the kind of inconclusive military missions that President Donald Trump said make “policemen” out of soldiers. Biden had soured on them more than a decade ago, as his once-hawkish foreign policy grew more circumspect.

That convergence is among several instances in which â€" for all their vast differences in policy, motivation and tone â€" the new president finds himself on common ground with the old.

Amid sharp criticism, Germany stumbles in late efforts to rescue Afghan support staff Link copied

BERLIN â€" As the Taliban entered Kabul last week, Marcus Grotian had to deliver a tough message to hundreds of Afghans gathered in safe houses in the capital: Leave immediately and hide wherever you can.

With the militants going door-to-door, having some 400 Afghans who had worked with the German military and other agencies holed up with their family members was too high a risk.

“Everyone was in panic, they were terrified,” said a 35-year-old Afghan who served as a translator alongside German troops in northern Afghanistan.

The government’s handling of its “Ortskräfte,” or local staff, has provoked harsh criticism in Germany. Ministries and officials have traded blame over why the state didn’t act sooner on evacuations, piling on pressure ahead of tightly fought elections in September.

While other coalition countries are also scrambling to make rescues, Germany’s process has been faulted for being particularly narrow in scope, initially only accepting those who had worked for its military or agencies during the past two years. Subcontractors were excluded.

“It’s shameful that the government didn’t step up and do what was supposed to be their job,” said Grotian, who runs the Patenschaftsnetzwerk Afghanische Ortskräfte, a nongovernmental organization in Germany that supports Afghans who have helped German forces.

Key updateU.S. advises citizens to avoid Kabul airportLink copied

The United States is advising U.S. citizens in Afghanistan to avoid the Kabul airport, as security in Afghanistan deteriorates after a Taliban takeover.

Chaotic scenes unfolded over the past week as Afghans and foreign nationals converged on the airport in efforts to leave the country.

An alert from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Saturday advised citizens “to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.” The guidance was issued in response to “potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport” and came as Taliban leaders gathered in Kabul to discuss forming a new government.

“We will contact registered U.S. citizens as the security situation changes to provide further instructions,” the alert said.

One fear among U.S. officials is a terror attack by the Islamic State. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC earlier this week that the government is “laser focused” on that possibility.

The United States has control over the inside of the airport, but the Taliban has been patrolling the exterior, beating and whipping some in the crowd. Some Americans were reportedly beaten by militants despite a promise of safe passage.

President Biden vowed on Friday that the administration would bring Americans home.

“Let me be clear: Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” he said in an address from the White House, adding that he didn’t know how many Americans were left in Afghanistan, or whether a safe return for all of them was possible.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the reports of Americans injured by militants “deeply troubling.”

“We have communicated to the Taliban that that’s absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

Three brothers went to war in Afghanistan. Only one returned.Link copied

Inside the kitchen drawer of his home, Beau Wise keeps two pairs of dog tags. One belonged to his older brother Ben, a Green Beret who died from gunshot wounds after a firefight in northern Afghanistan. The second pair belonged to his oldest brother, Jeremy, a former Navy SEAL-turned-CIA contractor, who was one of seven Langley operatives killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an agency base in southeastern Afghanistan.

These are the small but weighty totems of a sole survivor, the World War II-era designation for Beau, 37, a former Marine sergeant who also deployed to the Afghanistan war â€" but lived.

Beau’s status â€" and his family’s as one of a tiny number to lose two service members in Iraq and Afghanistan â€" has also endowed him with a distinct perspective on the cost of the longest war in U.S. history and the way it is ending.

At least 25 countries have agreed to help Afghan refugees, Blinken says Link copied

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that 13 countries had agreed to at least temporarily host vulnerable Afghans and another 12 nations had agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans.

In a statement, Blinken confirmed that potential Afghan refugees not already cleared for resettlement in the United States will be housed in Albania, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Mexico, Poland, Qatar, Rwanda, Ukraine and Uganda.

On Aug. 20, President Biden reaffirmed his commitment to evacuate American citizens and allies out of Afghanistan. (The Washington Post)

Countries serving as transit points include Bahrain, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, the Associated Press reported.

Blinken expressed gratitude to the other countries extending help to Afghans fleeing Taliban rule. “We deeply appreciate the support they have offered, and are proud to partner with them in our shared support of the Afghan people,” Blinken said.

Meanwhile, in Greece, officials erected a surveillance system and extended a 25-mile (40 km) fence along the border with Turkey in a bid to prevent Afghan refugees from entering Europe.

“We cannot wait, passively, for the possible impact,” Greece’s citizens’ protections minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, said, adding, “our borders will remain safe and inviolable.”

Neighboring Turkey called on European countries to step up to help Afghans fleeing their homes â€" a crisis that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said may pose “a serious challenge for everyone.”

As journalists evacuate, they face a new question: How to cover Afghanistan now?Link copied

CNN reporter Clarissa Ward headed out of Afghanistan for Doha on Friday, after days of reporting on the front lines of the country’s violent conflict. On Saturday, she took to Twitter to confirm she had landed safely along with almost 300 Afghan evacuees.

“Huge thanks to all of you for your support and concern, to the US Air Force for flying us out and to Qatar for welcoming us,” she tweeted. “We are the lucky ones.”

Ward and other journalists reporting from the country have been widely hailed for their bravery in telling the stories of local Afghans attempting to flee Taliban rule. Their reporting has captured the palpable sense of the danger and uncertainty engulfing Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Taliban’s rapid takeover.

The question now is how to cover the country. American news organizations have hastened to pull their correspondents and Afghan employees and family members out of Kabul over the past few days â€" an exodus bound to create a news vacuum, with few outsiders able to bear witness to conditions inside the country. On Tuesday, a group of Washington Post employees, including Afghan staff and their families, also safely departed the Afghan capital.

At the same time, there is little expectation that the Taliban will permit anything like independent reporting from inside what the group now calls the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban suppressed journalists in the pockets of the country it previously controlled, just as it cracked down on other basic rights.

“I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan. I felt ashamed that I was abandoning such an important job,” The Post’s Susannah George wrote as she recalled her escape.

Afghan army’s total collapse forces ‘soul-searching’ at NATO meetingLink copied

The collapse of the Afghan military after 20 years of international support and training, billions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost forced a sobering round of soul-searching at an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Friday, according to diplomats involved in the discussions.

In a joint statement, the 30-member alliance noted that “for the last twenty years, we have successfully denied terrorists a safe haven in Afghanistan” but in the closed session of ministers, the discussions were far less congratulatory.

“How was it possible that we invested 20 years into this country and into training and equipping police forces and army, when there was so little resistance?” said one European official, recounting a pointed question that was asked during the virtual session. “Soldiers threw away their arms or escaped into neighboring countries.”

Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar arrives in Kabul for new government talksLink copied

Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar has arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Saturday for talks on setting up a new government.

Baradar, considered the Taliban’s top political leader and the likely next leader of Afghanistan, will meet “jihadi leaders and politicians for an inclusive government set-up,” a Taliban official told Agence France-Presse. The Associated Press and the BBC confirmed the Kabul arrival of Baradar, who entered the country Tuesday for the first time in a decade to much fanfare and fireworks.

The news comes as the Taliban’s “legal, religious and foreign policy experts” are planning to unveil a new model for governing the country within the next few weeks, a Taliban official told Reuters, insisting it would “protect everyone’s rights,” even if was not a democracy by the Western definition. Baradar is meeting with former government leaders, local militia commanders, policymakers and religious scholars in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

As Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Taliban advanced last week, it was Baradar who addressed the nation on Sunday after the group’s lightning-fast takeover. “We have reached a victory that wasn’t expected. … We should show humility in front of Allah,” he said.

Baradar founded the extremist group in 1994 along with three other men and went on to serve as a negotiator for peace talks in Doha, Qatar. In 2010, he was arrested in Karachi in a joint operation led by the United States and Pakistan.

Baradar was released from prison in Pakistan in 2018 at the request of the U.S. government so that he could serve as the group’s leader in peace talks. Last year, he spoke with then-President Donald Trump, becoming the first militant leader to communicate with an American president.

Face of Afghan women’s soccer urges players to burn their jerseys, disappear amid Taliban ruleLink copied

She speaks by phone from Copenhagen in the voice of an older sister or a mother trying to protect the Afghan girls and women who found freedom and joy on soccer fields.

Khalida Popal, a founder and former captain of Afghanistan’s women’s national team, knows she is privileged to live with her mother and father in Denmark, a place of safety and freedom. Although threats of violence and messages of hate still reach her there, Popal will not be silent.

Yet silence is what she urges of the soccer-playing girls and young women now under Taliban rule. Burn the jerseys you wore with such pride, she begs them. Take down your photos. Destroy all evidence that you ever played. Disappear in every way possible.

“It is very painful,” Popal says of her message.

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