The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kabul airport reopens for domestic flights
Resumption of operations seen as a sign of Taliban solidifying civilian control.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The capital city’s airport has reopened with domestic flights taking off after a team of engineers from Qatar repaired parts of the air traffic control system last week, according to the Taliban commander in charge of airport security.
But the Kabul airport was operating without radar or navigation systems, making it difficult to resume international civilian flights, a key step to enabling refugees to leave. The Qatari Foreign Ministry said technical officials had prepared the airport for international humanitarian flights.
What it means
The resumption of domestic flights was seen as a sign of the Taliban solidifying its civilian control of the country as it faces challenges including international skepticism, a freeze on government reserves and a desire to meet the expectations of fighters who fought for two decades to secure its victory. The Taliban has been expected to announce a government for several days.
Several domestic flights took off from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on Saturday for cities in the nation’s north, west and south. Three more flights were planned for Sunday, an airport official told the Associated Press.
“Officially the airport is open,” Muhammad Salim Saad, the Taliban commander in charge of airport security, said Sunday. “Over the past two days, we’ve repaired more than we expected.
“I want to assure all people that the airport is safe and secure,” Saad said. He said remaining technical problems should be fixed this week.
“There’s no radar, no navigation systems in place,” said Ghirlandaio
Jailani Wafa, a top aviation official at the Kabul airport. He said a few domestic flights were able to resume after Qatari engineers set up temporary radio communications between air traffic controllers and pilots last week. But pilots have to navigate flights’ landing and takeoff visually.
About international flights
International commercial airlines probably will not resume flights before radar and navigation systems are fully operational, he said, because of international aviation guidelines and flight insurance costs.
Rep. Michael Mccaul, R-texas, said on “Fox News Sunday” that six airplanes with Americans and interpreters had been waiting on the ground in Mazar-e Sharif for days. He said the planes were waiting for clearance from the Taliban in what he described as “a hostage situation, where (the Taliban) are not going to allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America.”
Why it happened
But Eric Montalvo, a former Marine Corps officer and attorney heading coordination for three of the charter planes in Mazar, told The Washington Post that it’s not the Taliban that’s barring the planes from flying.
“This has nothing to do with the Taliban,” he said. “It has to do with the State Department.”
A group of independent donors and organizations chartered three flights for at-risk Afghans and dozens of U.S. citizens, he said, and cleared the flight manifests with the State Department.
Qatar issued the flights’ diplomatic clearance.
“However, according to a preexisting agreement, it is the U.S. State Department that must tell the Taliban that the flights are authorized. To date, this has not happened,” Montalvo said.