Taliban stop evacuation flights from leaving

About 1000 people, including dozens of American citizens and Afghans holding visas to the United States or other countries, remained stuck in Afghanistan for the fifth day yesterday as they awaited clearance from the Taliban for their departure.

Negotiations to allow the planes to depart, involving officials of the Taliban, the United States and Qatar, have dragged on for days, leaving the evacuees in an increasingly precarious limbo, according to a representative of an organisation trying to get them to safety.

The confusion surrounding the departure of the chartered planes from the northern city of Mazari-Sharif is raising fears the Taliban will fail to make good on their promises to respect human rights and not persecute Afghans who co-operated with the US-backed government.

“The reason the Taliban wants to prevent these people from leaving is likely because they intend to punish them for their co-operation with the US,” said Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official who has been working with the group Task Force Dunkirk to help evacuate Afghans from the country. If the Taliban really are using people as a bargaining chip, Mulroy said, that “is unacceptable”.

Republican Representative Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claimed during an interview on Fox News Sunday that the Taliban were effectively holding Americans hostage.

However, the State Department

and organisers on the ground in Qatar said the planes had received necessary clearance and were awaiting final approval from the Taliban. An Afghan official at the airport said many of the passengers did not have passports or visas, so were unable to leave the country. He said they had left the airport while the situation was sorted out. According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the US military approved three flights to take about 1000 evacuees, including dozens of American citizens, to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Qatar has also provided diplomatic clearance for the flights to land.

Marina LeGree, founder and executive director of Ascend, a nonprofit organisation that provided athletic training to women, said 34 people from her group, which includes girls ages 16-23, had travelled from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif in hopes of boarding a plane last week. She said the evacuees were not being held hostage and that they were free to leave to the airport, as some have.

However, the situation, she said, is growing more dire by the day.

“The crowd is growing. It’s just a nasty scene,” she said. “For us, we can’t go back. The girls are terrified. My girls are all Hazaras. Going back is just not an option. They’re truly desperate to leave.”

Hazaras, an ethnic minority, were targeted for abuse by the Taliban when the group previously held power before the US-led invasion in 2001.