4 women crushed to death in worst day of evacuation
THOUSANDS of terrified Afghans could be left at the mercy of the Taliban as the chaotic scramble to flee Kabul continued last night.
Translators and others who fear retribution from the hardline Islamic group may never make it to safety.
Four women died in the desperate crush in front of the airport yesterday, with British paratroopers among those trying to help.
Afghans who worked with the UK, America and other NATO allies, as well as people who have campaigned on issues like human rights, fear they may face horrific reprisals at the hands of the Taliban if they are unable to leave.
As temperatures hit 31C, one witness described it as the worst day by far since the Taliban overran Kabul last weekend and the evacuations began.
Sky News correspondent Stuart Ramsay tweeted from the scene: “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, crushed as far as the eye can see. At the front, Taliban militants beat Afghans with canes.”
British paras desperately shouted for medics and stretchers as unconscious people were carried away.
Chaos
Some of 16 Air Assault
Brigade tried to pull people including young children from the chaos.
The squaddies stood on compound walls, spraying the crowd with hoses to try to cool them as medics dashed between casualties.
Meanwhile, the UK is urging President Joe Biden to delay withdrawing US forces so they can continue to help with the mass airlift.
It has been reported the last British flight could be on Tuesday morning with as many as 6,000 British nationals and locals due to be evacuated.
But Downing Street said they did not expect that to be the case. A No10 source said: “The UK Government will continue to run resettlement and the ARAP [Afghan relocations and assistance policy] programme even after the military evacuation concludes.”
The British government has also made a dramatic U-turn on its refusal to offer support to a team of 125 Afghan guards who protected the embassy in Kabul, promising they will all be granted the right to enter the UK.
It is unlikely any Britons will be left behind but up to 2,000 Afghan citizens could miss the escape. President Biden
has set a deadline of August 31 to withdraw most remaining US troops.
So far 12,000 foreigners and Afghans working for embassies and international aid groups have been evacuated.
Amid chaotic scenes in the city the US Embassy has told citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without individual instructions from a US government representative.
This is due to potential security threats outside its gates.
Yesterday it was reported the minister for Afghanistan, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, was on holiday last week as Kabul fell. The Conservative peer has been in regular contact with the Afghan foreign minister Mohammed Atmar over the past year amid peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government.
Harsh
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has faced calls to resign for failing to make a call to Mr Atmar on Friday while on holiday in Crete, which critics say could have been used to seek help for Afghan interpreters.
Lord Ahmad was on a staycation in the UK and in contact with officials as the Afghanistan crisis rapidly deepened, but he was not asked to make the call to Mr Atmar on Friday and was not told about it.
The Foreign Office has confirmed the call never took place.
Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar arrived in the Afghan capital yesterday for talks with militant commanders, former government leaders and religious scholars before establishing a new government.
The Taliban said it is seeking an “inclusive, Islamic” government and offered full amnesty to those who worked for the US and Westernbacked
government. But many fear a return to its rule of the late 1990s, when the group barred women from attending school or working outside the home, banned TV and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.
In London, protesters gathered in a show of solidarity with the people of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile a British-educated Afghan is leading a fightback which has already killed up to 100 Taliban.
Ahmad Massoud, son of a legendary mujahideen commander who was murdered by al-qaeda, heads the
heavily armed uprising. Massoud, 32, went to school in Iran before a oneyear military course at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in Berkshire.
He went on to get a degree from London’s Kings College before studying for a masters at City University.
Swelled
His army is based in the mountains in Panjshir, north of Kabul, and has been swelled by fleeing westerntrained Afghan Army troops.
NATO yesterday urged President Biden to keep US troops at the airport after August 31.
Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said: “The timeline ends on August 31, but several of our allies raised the need to potentially extend that to be able to get more people out.” Paul Farthing, a former British Marine turned animal charity manager in Kabul, said the International Monetary Fund was stopping cash for Afghanistan, turning the situation into a “disaster upon a disaster”.
He added: “We can’t leave the country because we can’t get into the airport without putting our lives at risk.” The Taliban said it has not kidnapped any foreigners, although some are being questioned before being allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Greece completed a 25-mile fence on its border with Turkey to deter any surge in refugees.
The Taliban’s rapid takeover has fuelled concerns across Europe of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis.
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