San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
U.S. military begins final phase of pullout
KABUL — Taliban forces sealed off Kabul’s airport Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as the U.S. and its allies wound down a chaotic airlift that will end their troops’ two decades in Afghanistan.
Western leaders acknowledged that their withdrawal would mean leaving behind some of their citizens and many locals who helped them over the years, and they promised to try to continue working with the Taliban to allow local allies to leave after President Biden’s Tuesday deadline to withdraw from the country.
Although most of its allies had finished their evacuation flights, the U.S. planned to keep its round-the-clock flights going until the deadline, saying 113,500 people had been evacuated since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban claimed Kabul.
Biden warned Saturday that commanders had told him another attack was “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” and the U.S. Embassy issued a warning early Sunday for all Americans to avoid the airport area entirely.
The Taliban deployed extra forces outside of the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday’s bomb attack by an Islamic State group affiliate. New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces.
Officials said U.S. forces were taking every precaution at the airport, as there were concerns that Islamic State, which is far more radical than the Taliban, could strike again.
Biden also said a retaliatory drone strike he ordered that killed what military officials described as two high-profile Islamic State militants believed to have been involved in planning or facilitating attacks would not be his last response to Thursday’s suicide attack.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. military force at the Kabul airport, which peaked at about 5,800, had begun its final withdrawal.
As the flow of planes leaving Kabul slowed, others arrived in locales around the world carrying Afghans who managed to secure places on the last evacuation flights, including in the Washington area, Philadelphia, Madrid and Birmingham, England, among others. Some were relieved and looking forward to starting their new lives far from the Taliban, but others were bitter about having to flee.
In Spain, evacuee Shabeer Ahmadi, 29, a journalist targeted by the Taliban, said the United States had doomed the work he and others had put into making Afghanistan a better place by allowing the insurgent group to reclaim power. “They abandoned the new generation of Afghanistan,” Ahmadi said.
An evacuation flight to Britain landed with an extra passenger on Saturday after the cabin crew delivered a baby girl mid-air, Turkish media reported. The parents named her Havva, or Eve, and she was at least the fourth baby known to have been born to Afghan mothers who went into labor on evacuation flights.
Meanwhile, families of Afghans killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing at the airport by the Islamic State group continued burying their dead — at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members died in the attack.
The U.S. on Saturday released the names of the 13 Marines, Navy and Army personnel who were killed in the bombing. They included at least one of the Marines — recently promoted Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, of Sacramento — who were seen in widely circulated photos cuddling Afghan infants they had temporarily rescued from the crush of the crowds outside the airport gates this month.
According to a State Department spokesperson, 5,400 Americans and probably more have been safely evacuated from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, including nearly 300 Americans in the last day. Another 350 were still seeking to leave the country, and those were the only ones the department could confirm were still in Afghanistan.
Biden has said he will adhere to the Tuesday deadline for withdrawing all U.S. forces, and the Taliban have rejected any extension of the date.
The U.S. and its allies have said they will continue providing humanitarian aid through the U.N. and other partners, but any broader engagement — including development assistance — is likely to hinge on whether the Taliban deliver on their promises of more moderate rule.