‘Private’ f lights to safety set up by US donors

SIX wealthy US citizens are funding a private mission by ex-special forces to fly 5,600 Afghans out of Kabul in eight days.

The plan is to extract Afghan soldiers and police officers – along with their families – who are currently in hiding.

Anonymous benefactors have donated more than $500,000 (£365,000) to an operation dubbed the Wings of Eagles, which will fly

00 out of the country each day until the August 31 deadline.

Former US special forces are particularly keen to rescue members of the Afghan commando anti-terrorism units who they trained since 2003. The operation is being run by Ark Salus, a veterans charity in Alabama.

Its director Peter Quinn, a former helicopter pilot and intelligence officer who served five tours in Afghanistan, said: ‘We have a moral obligation to our fellow Afghan warriors to safeguard them, their wives and chil

‘We are taking action’

dren, and rescue them from Kabul, just as they have brought us home to our families.’

He said local soldiers are currently communicating from safe houses until they can be rescued.

‘They’ve shed their uniforms,’ Mr Quinn said. ‘They are in hiding, and waiting to know when to get to the airport.’

The Wings of Eagles mission is not charging Afghan passengers for places on their planes. However, a number of other private operations have been selling seats for up to £ 5,000 each.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Mr Quinn said: ‘We’re constantly flying aircraft. We’re going to be doing as many as we can, as long as we can, until the US government pulls out of Kabul. That’s 00 Afghans a day for the next eight days.

‘We have six private investors who are fed up with what is happening in Afghanistan. We are not waiting for permission, we are taking action.’