US urges Americans to avoid Kabul airport amid ‘panoply of security concerns’

After the US advised Americans in Afghanistan to avoid traveling to Kabul airport on Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman said the US had “a whole panoply of security concerns” around efforts to evacuate its citizens and Afghan allies.

Thousands are still trying to flee, a week after Taliban Islamist militants took control of the country. In Washington, Joe Biden abandoned plans to spend the weekend in Delaware and stayed at the White House to monitor the situation.

At a Pentagon briefing, press spokesman John Kirby said he would not “detail a threat assessments with the intelligence” but said the area around Kabul airport was “very fluid and very dynamic”.

“What I would tell you is that we continue to have regular communication with Taliban leaders, they’re in Kabul, particularly those that are manning or in charge of the checkpoints around the airport, that communication and deconfliction occurs.”

Kirby also said there was “a lot less visibility farther out into the city, and that’s possibly where there might be threats of kidnapping or … what really we’re trying to avoid here. There’s a lot, there’s a whole panoply of security concerns that we have.”

The US embassy advisory against traveling to the airport came after Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar arrived in Kabul for talks with other leaders.

“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising US citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so,” the advisory said.

The White House said on Friday it did not know exactly how many Americans were currently in Afghanistan, though officials have indicated it is in the thousands.

An evacuee holds up a peace sign after being manifested for a flight on 19 August at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
An evacuee holds up a peace sign after being manifested for a flight on 19 August at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photograph: Mark Andries/US MARINE CORPS/AFP/Getty Images

Maj Gen Hank Taylor, with the US military’s Joint Staff, told reporters on Saturday there had been periods when gates to the airport were closed but said there were currently three to four main gates open. He also said 2,500 US citizens had been evacuated to date.

“The gates are always manned by forces there that can process the right people that come to those gates, all the time,” he said.

Taylor said six US C-17 planes and 32 charter flights with 3,800 passengers had left Afghanistan in the last 24 hours, a smaller number than in previous days. Three flights had landed at Dulles airport near Washington, Taylor said, with 22,000 people relocated to Fort Bliss in Texas for processing.

At least 12 people have been killed in and around the airfield since the fall of Kabul, Nato and Taliban officials said.

On Saturday, Switzerland postponed a charter flight. A government statement said: “The security situation around Kabul airport has worsened significantly in the last hours. A large number of people in front of the airport and sometimes violent confrontations are hindering access to the airport.”

Taylor told reporters there had been “no reported change to the current enemy situation” outside the airport.

Kirby said the US “knew of a small number of cases where some Americans and Afghans we want to evacuate have been harassed and in some cases beaten”, as indicated by the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Friday, a comment seized upon by Republicans in attacks on Biden’s handling of the withdrawal.

“We don’t believe it is a very large number … By and large, most Americans who have their credentials with them are being allowed through Taliban checkpoints and onto the gate and airfield,” Kirby said.

US soldiers arrive to provide security in support of Operation Allies Refuge at the airport in Kabul.
US soldiers arrive to provide security in support of Operation Allies Refuge at the airport in Kabul. Photograph: Us Air Force/Reuters

The US had not ruled out troops going outside the airport to collect people, Kirby said, adding that Austin had made clear to the Taliban confrontations were not acceptable.

“We’ve certainly made our concerns known, and I think equally frustrating is the fact that what appears to be happening is that not every Taliban fighter either got the word or decided to obey the word,” Kirby said.

Austin was not considering resigning, he said.

The Taliban have said they want peace. In power from 1996 to 2001, guided by Islamic law, they stopped women working or going out without wearing a burqa and stopped children going to school.

Afghans and international aid and advocacy groups have reported harsh retaliation against protests and round-ups of those who formerly held government positions, criticised the Taliban or worked with Americans. Former officials have told of hiding as gunmen go from door to door. One family of 16 described running to the bathroom, lights off and children’s mouths covered, in fear for their lives.

“We have heard of some cases of atrocities and crimes against civilians,” a Taliban official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity. “If [members of the Taliban] are doing these law and order problems, they will be investigated. We can understand the panic, stress and anxiety. People think we will not be accountable, but that will not be the case.”

The official said the group planned to ready a new model for governing, with teams to tackle security and finance.

Evacuee children wait for the next flight after being manifested on 19 August at Kabul’s airport.
Evacuee children wait for the next flight after being manifested on 19 August at Kabul’s airport. Photograph: Mark Andries/US MARINE CORPS/AFP/Getty Images

“Experts from the former government will be brought in for crisis management,” the official said, adding that the new government structure would not be a democracy by western definitions, but “it will protect everyone’s rights”.

Baradar, the chief of the Taliban’s political office, was part of the negotiating team in the Qatar capital, Doha. Reported to have been one of the most trusted commanders of the former supreme leader Mullah Omar, he was captured in 2010 in Karachi and released in 2018.

On Friday, Biden confronted criticism about the US withdrawal.

“I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies,” Biden said. “As a matter of fact, the exact opposite … we’re acting with dispatch, we’re acting, committing to what we said we would do.”

On Saturday, Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said: “We’re fighting against both time and space. That’s the race that we’re in right now. And we’re trying to do this as quickly and safely as possible.”

source: theguardian.com