OUR BOYS’ LAST STAND IN KABUL
Drama as Paras hold line in airport anarchy ++ Biden’s humiliating admission of looming disaster ++ And as minister admits it may be all over in 48 hours, is this...
BRITISH Paratroopers desperately tried to hold the line at Kabul airport last night amid fears the rescue mission could collapse in days, leaving thousands behind.
As dramatic pictures showed the airport being surrounded by scenes of anarchy and anguish, the Paras mounted a frantic last stand to prevent the operation descending into chaos.
Women and children were crushed in a stampede as huge crowds tried to escape the Afghan capital and reach the sanctuary of an evacuation flight.
US President Joe Biden said last night it was one of the ‘most difficult’ airlifts in history and admitted he could not guarantee what the ‘final outcome’ would be.
He said he wanted all Americans out of Afghanistan by August 31 – a move that appears to set a deadline for the
evacuation of all Westerners and their allies. Boris Johnson said Britain was having to ‘manage the consequences’ of the ‘emphatic’ decision by the US to withdraw its troops from the country. He admitted the rescue effort faced ‘formidable’ challenges and the situation in Afghanistan was ‘precarious’.
Armed Forces minister James Heappey conceded the UK would not be able to rescue everyone who has been promised sanctuary here and the operation at Kabul airport may remain open for only two more days.
Britain has promised to evacuate 7,000 UK citizens and Afghan staff from the country, but Mr Heappey said the ‘sad truth’ was that ‘we don’t have it in our gift to stay there until absolutely everyone is out’.
Mr Heappey’s admission and the astonishing scenes in Kabul raised fears last night that many Afghan translators and their families could get left behind. The Taliban have already started going door to door in the country, hunting down those who worked for the West.
Yesterday, Nato begged Mr Biden not to leave Kabul and urged the US troops to stay at the airport to get as many people out as possible
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: ‘The US has stated that 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.’
It is thought that British and European Special Forces troops are trying to mount rescue missions in Kabul city to retrieve the vulnerable, but that US troops have been ordered to remain at the airfield.
At one point yesterday, a crowd of desperate Afghans surged forwards in an attempt to access the airport, forcing the Paras to link arms and push them back. In the frightening melee, a British soldier had his helmet ripped off and appeared in danger of being crushed by the angry crowd.
Behind the Paras, an unidentified man who was part of their security team, raised a Special Forces-issue Glock handgun above his head and motioned as if to open fire.
Troops from the Parachute Regiment’s Second Battalion (2 Para) then screamed ‘Get back, get back!’ at Afghans attempting to reach the airfield through a gate which had been opened so a security vehicle could drive out. On another extraordinary day:
Mr Biden issued another extraordinary defence of his handling of the crisis, claiming every Nato member, including
Britain, agreed with his decision to pull troops out;
There were claims of Western evacuation flights leaving Kabul half empty, but British officials said they had airlifted 1,000 people out in 24 hours;
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab refused to apologise for failing to make a crucial phone call while on holiday to seek urgent help for Afghan translators;
Mr Johnson insisted he ‘absolutely’ had full confidence in Mr Raab as the Government mounted a frantic operation to shore up his precarious position;
The Taliban’s early rule in Afghanistan was turning increasingly bloody as it machine-gunned a police chief, sliced off villagers’ muscles and shot dead a journalist’s family;
It was also reported that women had been set on fire by Taliban fighters for ‘bad cooking’;
Yama, a former frontline interpreter for UK forces, was in tears when he spoke to the Mail from a secret location in Kabul as he told of his anger at being denied sanctuary in Britain.
Last night, the Prime Minister claimed the situation at the airport was getting ‘slightly better’. He added: ‘Yesterday we were able to get out about a thousand people, today another thousand people, and a lot of those are obviously UK-eligible persons coming back to this country. So a lot of them are coming back under the Afghanistan resettlement and assistance programme.’
Mr Johnson said he would work with the Taliban to ‘find a solution’, adding: ‘It is worth repeating that at the end of a 20-year cycle of engagement there is a huge record to be proud of in Afghanistan.
‘It bears repeating that the UK Armed Forces, UK diplomats, aid workers, did help to change the lives of literally millions of people in Afghanistan, to help educate millions of women and young girls who would otherwise not have been educated and to stop terrorism from coming to this country.
‘And what I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan – working with the Taliban, of course, if necessary – will go on.
‘Our commitment to Afghanistan is lasting.’
But his words contrasted with dramatic images of the thousands massing around Kabul airport in a bid to board one of the mercy flights, the last route out of Afghanistan. Some were UK nationals who had to resort to frantically waving their passports to attract the attention of British soldiers.
Panic set in amid the scene of towering concrete blast walls and fencing topped with razor wire, and desperate parents held terrified crying babies aloft for Coalition troops above them to pluck them to safety.
Time appears to be running out for many of the interpreters who had been promised a new life in Britain after they stood shoulder to shoulder with troops in Helmand province in the fighting there which cost 457 British lives.
Mr Heappey’s warning yesterday raised further alarm over how many of these Afghans, who likely face death sentences under Taliban rule, will be left behind. The minister said: ‘The air bridge has two more days, five more days, ten days.
‘It keeps absolutely everyone here at the Ministry of Defence awake at night – that reality that we won’t get absolutely everyone out.
‘At the moment the large majority are getting to us. Now of course, some will not be able to get to us.
‘There are people who are in deep fear and quite rightly feel that they can’t risk it. There are others who are much further afield in Afghanistan and will have a real challenge to get [to the airport].’
‘Police chief machine-gunned’
‘Crying babies held aloft’
IT IS an apocalyptic scene: The pandemonium sparked in Kabul when Joe Biden shamefully handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban is reaching a crescendo.
Insurgents stalk and murder their enemies. Frantic mothers pass babies over barbed-wire fences at the airport so they can reach safety. And as our front page pictures vividly depict, UK troops desperately try to contain panicking crowds fleeing the barbarians.
After days of denial, the cowardly US President has finally accepted he has catastrophically lost control of the withdrawal. Chillingly, one UK minister warns it will be hours, not days, before the Taliban pull up the drawbridge, bringing mercy flights to an end.
Boris Johnson is right to blast blundering Mr Biden for creating this calamity.
But it is not clear the UK has yet got a grip. Even as fanatics executed opponents, one frontbencher insisted insurgents blocking translators from evacuation were being ‘officious, not malicious’. They’re psychopaths, minister, not bureaucrats.
And it beggars belief the Prime Minister has ‘full confidence’ in Dominic Raab, who contemptibly refuses to apologise for not interrupting his holiday to pick up the phone to help save interpreters’ lives.
Now, though, Mr Johnson must persuade Mr Biden to make small amends by not cutting and running when all Americans have been airlifted out. For the PM’s top priority – his only priority – must be getting Britons and Afghans who risked their lives for us out safely. Whatever it takes.