A soldier assigned to 82nd Airborne Division supplies safety at Hamid Karzai International Airport
Berlin:
A firefight broke out between unidentified gunmen, Western safety forces and Afghan guards on the North Gate of Kabul airport on Monday, Germany’s armed forces stated, as hundreds of Afghans and foreigners thronged the airport, searching for to flee Taliban rule.
One Afghan guard was killed and three others had been injured within the battle, which additionally concerned U.S. and German forces, the German navy stated on Twitter, with out specifying whether or not the useless Afghan was one of many Taliban fighters deployed to protect the airport.
The airport has been a scene of chaos for the reason that Taliban seized the Afghan capital on Aug. 15 as U.S. and worldwide forces attempt to evacuate residents and weak Afghans.
On Sunday, Taliban fighters beat again crowds on the airport a day after seven Afghans had been killed https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/seven-people-killed-crowd-near-kabul-airport-uk-ministry-defence-2021-08-22 in a crush on the gates because the deadline for the withdrawal of international troops approaches.
Foreign forces in Afghanistan haven’t sought to increase the Aug. 31 deadline to depart the nation, a Taliban official stated on Monday, after President Joe Biden stated U.S. troops may keep longer to supervise a “hard and painful” evacuation.
The Taliban seized energy in Afghanistan simply over per week in the past because the United States and its allies withdrew troops after a 20-year conflict geared toward overthrowing the Taliban and looking down al Qaeda after the 9/11 assaults.
Foreign forces had been working in the direction of the end-August deadline agreed with the Taliban to depart the nation and had not sought to increase it but, a senior authorized adviser to the Taliban management instructed Reuters on Monday.
Biden, who final week flagged the potential for troops remaining longer, stated on Sunday the safety state of affairs in Afghanistan was altering quickly and remained harmful.
“Let me be clear, the evacuation of thousands from Kabul is going to be hard and painful” and would have been “no matter when it began”, Biden stated in a briefing on the White House.
“We have a long way to go and a lot could still go wrong.”
Asked by a reporter whether or not the United States would prolong an Aug. 31 deadline for evacuations, Biden replied: “Our hope is we will not have to extend but there are going to be discussions I suspect on how far along we are in the process.”
Biden stated he had directed the State Department to contact Americans stranded within the nation, the place Taliban checkpoints are in place.
“We’re executing a plan to move groups of these Americans to safety and to safely and effectively move them to the airport compound. For security reasons, I’m not going to go into detail … but I will say again today what I’ve said before: Any American who wants to get home will get home.”
Afghan allies of the West and weak Afghans resembling ladies activists and journalists could be helped too, he stated.
Civilian Aircraft
Panicked Afghans have clamoured to board flights out of Kabul, fearing reprisals and a return to a harsh model of Islamic legislation that the Sunni Muslim group carried out when it was final in energy, twenty years in the past.
The United States on Sunday sought the assistance of six industrial airways to move folks after their evacuation from Afghanistan. Biden stated folks fleeing Afghanistan had been being assisted by greater than two dozen international locations in 4 continents.
Japan stated it would ship a navy plane to Afghanistan on Monday to deliver again its residents. More flights are anticipated to repatriate not solely Japanese residents but in addition Afghans working on the Japanese embassy or with Japanese missions, a authorities spokesperson stated.
A United Nations flight transported 120 folks from Kabul to Kazakhstan on Sunday, stated U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Passengers included U.N. personnel and members of non-governmental organizations who work with the United Nations in Afghanistan, he stated, including that it was the second such flight previously week.
Opposition
Leaders of the Taliban, who’ve sought to indicate a extra average face since capturing Kabul, have begun talks on forming a authorities.
They face opposition from forces in northern Afghanistan, which stated this weekend they’d taken three districts near the Panjshir valley.
Anti-Taliban chief Ahmad Massoud stated on Sunday he hoped to carry peaceable talks with the Islamist motion however that his forces within the Panjshir – remnants of military items, particular forces and militiamen – had been able to struggle.
“We want to make the Taliban realise that the only way forward is through negotiation,” he stated. “We do not want a war to break out.”
The Taliban stated a whole bunch of their fighters had been heading in the direction of Panjshir, displaying a video on Twitter of a column of captured vans with the white Taliban flag however nonetheless bearing their authorities markings shifting alongside a freeway.
Reuters spoke to eight medical doctors in public hospitals in a number of Taliban managed cities elsewhere within the nation who stated they’d not heard of any violence or acquired any wounded or our bodies of individuals killed in clashes since Thursday.
