Qatari jet lands in Kabul to offer help reopening the airport

A Qatari plane carrying a technical team landed at Kabul airport today – a first since western evacuation flights stopped on Monday night.

The plane brought experts to help the Taliban get the airport running, a source said, allowing evacuation flights to resume and aid to be brought into the country.

Qatar sent its experts after a request from the Taliban, the source added, but no final agreement has yet been reached about what kind of help they can provide.

It comes amid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan that has seen thousands of people stream across land borders amid doubts that the Taliban will keep their word and allow those with western travel documents to leave once flights restart.  

The flight is carrying a technical team which the Taliban (pictured) requested to help them reopen the airstrip - allowing aid into the country, and refugees out

The flight is carrying a technical team which the Taliban (pictured) requested to help them reopen the airstrip – allowing aid into the country, and refugees out

‘A Qatari jet carrying a technical team has landed in Kabul earlier today to discuss the resumption of operations in the airport,’ a source told AFP today.

‘While no final agreement has been reached regarding providing technical assistance, Qatar’s technical team has initiated this discussion based on the other sides’ request. Talks are still ongoing at the level of security and operation.’ 

More than 123,000 foreign nationals and Afghans fled the country in a frenzied airlift operation that wound up on Tuesday, but many more are desperate to depart.

Hundreds of those are thought to be western citizens who get left behind in the rush to leave, while tens of thousands more are Afghans who were promised sanctuary in return for helping US, UK and NATO forces.

Afghanistan is facing several immediate and rapidly worsening crises following the Taliban’s rapid takeover, which show no sign of abating as the Islamists have not ye formed a government – caught off-guard by the speed of their own take-over.

Cash reserves are running desperately low, food shortages have seen prices soar, skilled workers are fleeing and the economy is on the brink of collapse.

Medical supplies are also running low, the country’s wealth reserves are stashed overseas and under an asset freeze, aid payments have all-but dried up, and foreign exchanges have shut down – meaning people cannot wire funds from abroad. 

The Islamist militia has focused on keeping banks, hospitals and government machinery running even as thousands of people crossed the borders into Iran, Pakistan and central Asian states.

Thousands of people have flocked to Afghanistan's land borders, doubting Taliban promises that they will be allowed to leave the country once flights restart

Thousands of people have flocked to Afghanistan’s land borders, doubting Taliban promises that they will be allowed to leave the country once flights restart

At Torkham, a border crossing with Pakistan just east of the Khyber Pass, a Pakistani official said: ‘A large number of people are waiting on the Afghanistan side for the opening of the gate.’

Thousands also gathered at the Islam Qala post on the border with Iran.

‘I felt that being among Iranian security forces brought some kind of relaxation for Afghans as they entered Iran, compared with the past,’ said one Afghan among a group of eight that crossed over. 

The Taliban is talking with Qatar and Turkey over how to run Kabul’s airport, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, but it could take days or weeks to finalise those negotiations.

Uzbekistan’s land border with northern Afghanistan remained closed but its government said it would assist Afghans in transit to Germany by air, once flights resume.

In a resolution on Monday, the U.N. Security Council urged the Taliban to permit safe passage for those seeking to leave, but did not mention the creation of a safe zone, a step backed by France and others.

The Taliban have declared an amnesty for all Afghans who worked with foreign forces during the war that ousted them from power in 2001 for their refusal to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Taliban leaders have also called on Afghans to return home and help rebuild, while promising to protect human rights, in an apparent bid to present a more moderate face than their first government, which enforced radical Islamic law.

The militia made similar promises upon seizing power in 1996, only to publicly hang a former president, ban women from education and employment, enforce strict dress codes and adopt a punitive approach to the people of Kabul.

One woman said she saw Taliban fighters beating women with sticks outside a bank in the Afghan capital on Tuesday.

‘It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that and it really frightened me,’ the 22-year-old said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Hamid Karzai Airport remained closed today after the Taliban took it over behind the backs of retreating American troops

Hamid Karzai Airport remained closed today after the Taliban took it over behind the backs of retreating American troops

Taliban guards are pictured outside the airstrip, where only members of the Islamist group are currently allowed to go - with no flights taking off

Taliban guards are pictured outside the airstrip, where only members of the Islamist group are currently allowed to go – with no flights taking off

The Taliban have yet to name a new government or reveal how they intend to govern, unlike in 1996, when a leadership council was formed within hours of taking the capital.

The foreign minister of neighbouring Pakistan, which has close ties to the Taliban, said on Tuesday he expected Afghanistan to have a new ‘consensus government’ within days.

In the absence of a government in Kabul, Britain and India held separate talks with Taliban officials in Doha amid fears that up to half a million Afghans https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/half-million-afghans-could-flee-across-borders-unhcr-2021-08-27 could flee.

Washington said it would use its leverage, including access to the global marketplace, over the Taliban as it seeks to get the remaining Americans and allies out of Afghanistan after its military withdrew.

High on victory and back in power, some Taliban leaders mocked the United States.

‘Your power is gone, your gold is gone,’ Anas Haqqani, who has emerged as one of the group’s most prominent leaders, said on Twitter.

Haqqani posted a photograph of himself holding discarded prison shackles on Wednesday as he toured Bagram prison, where he spent years kept in solitary confinement by U.S. forces.

Still, Afghanistan desperately needs money, and the Taliban are unlikely to get swift access to the roughly $10 billion in assets mostly held abroad by the Afghan central bank.

‘If the international community wants to prevent an economic collapse, one way would be to allow Afghanistan to gain limited and monitored access to its reserves,’ Shah Mehrabi, an economics professor at Montgomery College in Maryland who is on the board of the central bank, told Reuters.

Afghan evacuees - some of the last allowed out of the country - arrive in Washington DC on Tuesday, a day after the last American forces departed

Afghan evacuees – some of the last allowed out of the country – arrive in Washington DC on Tuesday, a day after the last American forces departed

Long queues formed at banks in Kabul on Wednesday as people tried to withdraw savings.

The Taliban also said it had surrounded the only remaining province resisting its rule and it called on the fighters there to negotiate a settlement with it.

Several thousand members of local militias and remnants of army and special forces units have been holding in mountainous Panjshir under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud.

In a recorded speech, senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Motaqi called on them to put down their weapons.

‘The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is home for all Afghans,’ he said.

Motaqi reminded the anti-Taliban forces that NATO and U.S. forces had been unable to defeat the Taliban.

‘But we are still trying to ensure that there is no war and that the issue in Panjshir is resolved calmly and peacefully,’ he said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the United States was also mindful of the threat posed by ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide bombing outside Kabul airport which killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghan civilians.

source: dailymail.co.uk