Poland and Belgium ended their withdrawal from Afghanistan, but other European countries vowed on Wednesday to stick to it as much as possible, because a large number of people fleeing Taliban rule are being airlifted before the full withdrawal of the United States.
President Joe Biden stated that he will abide by the August 31 deadline to complete the U.S. withdrawal because the Taliban insists that he must do so, thereby increasing pressure on already dangerous operations to evacuate people from Kabul.
The European allies asked for more time but did not argue. In fact, they may be forced to end the withdrawal before the last US troops leave. Some countries have not announced when they will end their operations, perhaps because they want to avoid another fatal squeeze at the airport, which is one of the last ways to leave the country.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan nearly 20 years after being expelled in a US-led invasion, which was orchestrated by al-Qaeda under the auspices of the organization. Their return to power forced many Afghans to flee, fearing reprisals or returning to the brutal rule they imposed when they were in power last time.
It is thought that thousands of people are still trying to leave, and it is not clear whether they can all leave before the end of the month. But any decision by Biden to extend his stay may re-ignite the fighting between the Taliban and the Western army responsible for airlift.
French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday: “Due to extreme ground tension… and the planned withdrawal of US troops, these evacuation operations are a real race against time.” He said his country The evacuation may end “a few hours, maybe a few days” before departure in the United States.
The Taliban stated that they will resume normal commercial air traffic after taking over the airport after August 31, but it is not clear whether airlines are willing to fly to airports controlled by militants.
With the deadline approaching, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydac said on Wednesday that Poland had evacuated the last group of people after consulting with US and British officials.
Przydacz said: “After a long-term analysis of the security situation report, we can no longer risk the lives of diplomats and soldiers.”
Przydacz said that some troops will stay briefly to end the operation. Poland has used more than a dozen planes to transport hundreds of evacuees to Warsaw. Some people later traveled to other countries.
A few hours later, the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Crowe said that Belgium had ended its evacuation flight from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, to Pakistan. He wrote on Twitter that the government “considered the evolution of the situation in Afghanistan and reached agreement with European partners,” made this decision.
De Crowe said: “Belgium will continue to repatriate those evacuated to our country in the next few days.” In recent days, more than 1,100 people have flown to Belgium.
The Czech Republic announced the completion of its evacuation mission last week, and Hungary said it plans to end its operations soon.
The White House said on Wednesday that about 19,000 people had been evacuated from Kabul in the past 24 hours. It said that since the Taliban took over in mid-August, the United States has evacuated or assisted in the evacuation of about 82,300 people.
Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said that as many as 1,500 Americans may be waiting to be evacuated. This figure suggests that part of the airlift led by the United States may be completed before the deadline on Tuesday. Blinken said that the U.S. State Department estimated that when the airlift began on August 14, about 6,000 Americans wanted to leave Afghanistan. So far, about 4,500 of them have been evacuated.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that the military will “continue to evacuate the population in need until the end.” But he added that in the last few days and hours, balance must be maintained because of Kabul’s 5,400 soldiers and critical The system also needs to be withdrawn.
In Kabul itself, life is slow to return to normal, but many people—especially women—stay in it, fearing the Taliban or general instability.
The Mayor of Kabul, Dawood Sultanzoy, said that many city workers have not yet returned to work due to a lack of experienced staff hampering normal operations. But he said that with the Taliban and other armed groups carrying out bombing and other attacks on Western-backed governments, the city has begun to demolish the blast walls that have been ubiquitous in recent years.
The Taliban say that decades of war are over, and those who oppose them will not be attacked in retaliation. But many Afghans distrust the organization, and there are reports of summary executions and other abuses in areas controlled by the Taliban. Many people worry about returning to the strong Islamic rule of the Taliban in the 1990s, when women were basically confined to their homes.
After the Taliban occupied most of Afghanistan in a few days this month, the chaos at Kabul Airport has shocked the world. Last week, Afghans swarmed on the tarmac. Some people clung to a US military transport plane during takeoff, then crashed and died. At least seven people died that day, and another seven people were killed in a panic stampede on Sunday.
In the days since, tens of thousands of people have poured into the airport, and the United States and its allies have been working hard to speed up the evacuation, sometimes sending people out and taking them to the airport before their paperwork has been fully processed. Transit station. On Wednesday, a group of 51 people landed in Uganda, Uganda being the first African country to serve as a transit point.
European countries, including US allies Germany and the United Kingdom, have asked for an extension of time to continue their evacuation. However, even after the G7 emergency online summit, Biden insisted on the August date.
This leaves European countries no choice but to comply with deadlines.
Canada is “prepared to stay” in Afghanistan after the August 31 deadline set by the United States: Trudeau
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech to Parliament: “We have always been very clear that the overall deployment is consistent with the position of the United States, the most powerful military member of the coalition.”
“We will continue the evacuation operation as long as possible,” she added, but did not specify when the operation will end.
Currently, the US military is responsible for coordinating all air traffic in and out of Kabul Airport. Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter that “people with legal documents” will be able to fly out of Kabul Airport on commercial flights after the August deadline.
On Wednesday, when evacuees lined up on the tarmac, a large number of military planes took off from the airport. Desperate people stayed outside, some standing in the sewers as far as their knees, waving ID cards to the western soldiers, hoping to get over the barbed wire and board the plane.
Although the final withdrawal date is less than a week away, analyst Patricia Lewis stated that the actual deadline to stop the withdrawal is “the next few days.”
Lewis, director of the International Security Program at the International Think Tank Chatham Institute, said: “There is a lot of work to be done, including getting all the people and all equipment doing this work away.”
“All allies are highly dependent on U.S. military cover, especially air cover,” Lewis said. “They can’t put their people in danger, so it really depends on when the US starts packing up.”
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul, Jill Lawless in London, Karel Janicek in Prague, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington. report.
© 2021 Canadian Press
