- As refugees poured into the capital and the US Marines returned to oversee the emergency evacuation, the Afghan Taliban strengthened their control of Kabul.
- Initially, the United States discussed the deployment of 3,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to help evacuate U.S. embassy personnel.
- In the next few weeks, US President Joe Biden has made a plan to completely withdraw US troops there.
The Afghan Taliban strengthened their territorial control over Kabul on Saturday. Refugees relentlessly attacked by rebels flooded into the capital, and the US Marines returned to supervise the emergency evacuation.
With the country’s second and third largest cities falling into the hands of the Taliban, Kabul has effectively become the last stop under siege, and government forces have little or no resistance elsewhere.
Insurgent fighters are now camping 50 kilometers away, allowing the United States and other countries to scramble to airlift their nationals out of Kabul in case of a full-scale attack.
U.S. Embassy staff were ordered to start crushing and burning sensitive materials because the planned redeployment of 3,000 U.S. troops began to arrive to ensure airport security and supervise evacuation.
Many European countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and Spain announced the withdrawal of personnel from their embassies on Friday.
Read | Canada will receive 20,000 Afghan refugees targeted by the Taliban
For the residents of Kabul and the tens of thousands of people who have sought refuge there in recent weeks, the overwhelming emotion is a kind of confusion and fear for the future.
“We don’t know what happened,” Khairddin Logari, a resident, told AFP.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that he was “deeply touched by reports of the poor treatment of women in areas occupied by the Taliban, which imposed extremely harsh Islamic brands on Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule from 1996 to 2001. disturbed”.
Guterres said:
It is especially frightening and heartbreaking to see reports of Afghan girls and women being denied their hard-won rights.
The Taliban was overthrown after the September 11 attacks nearly 20 years ago. The scale and speed of the Taliban’s advancement shocked the Afghans and the US-led alliance, which invested billions of dollars in the country.
A few days before US President Joe Biden ordered the final withdrawal of troops, individual soldiers, troops and even entire divisions surrendered-providing more vehicles and military equipment to the insurgents to push them to lightning-fast go ahead.
Despite frantic evacuation efforts, the Biden administration still insists that a full-scale takeover by the Taliban is not inevitable.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Friday: “Kabul is not currently in an imminent threat environment,” while acknowledging that Taliban militants are “trying to isolate” the city.
In recent days, the Taliban’s offensive has accelerated, occupying Herat in the north, and a few hours later, occupying Kandahar, the spiritual center of the organization in the south.
Abdul Nafi, a resident of Kandahar, told AFP that after government troops abandoned it as a refuge for military installations outside, the city was calm and they were negotiating terms of surrender there.
“I came out this morning and I saw the Taliban white flag in most squares of the city,” he said. “I think this may be the first day of Eid al-Fitr.”
Pro-Taliban social media accounts boasted of the large amount of spoils captured by the insurgents—posted photos of armored vehicles, heavy weapons, and even drones captured by their fighters at abandoned military bases.
In Herat, the Taliban captured the longtime strongman Ismail Khan, who, together with his militia fighters, helped lead the defense of the provincial capital.
Pule Alam, the capital of Lohar Province, is the latest city to collapse on Friday, and the Taliban are within easy reach of Kabul.
46 years after helicopters evacuated the Americans from Saigon, helicopters flew back and forth between Kabul Airport and the huge US diplomatic compound in the heavily guarded Green Zone, marking the end of the Vietnam War.
The US-led evacuations focused on thousands of people, including embassy employees, Afghans and their families, who feared retaliation for serving as a US translator or other supporting role.
Pentagon spokesman Kirby said that most of the evacuation forces will be in place on Sunday and that “thousands of people will be able to evacuate from Afghanistan every day.”
“Capacity will not be an issue,” he said.
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