Thousands of Americans and Afghans who worked with US forces are still trapped in Kabul, as the US administration struggles to deal with a massive backlog of visas and Taliban roadblocks that are preventing them from accessing the airport safely.
With the deadline approaching on August 31, tens of thousands of individuals who were qualified for evacuation had yet to be flown out, many of whom were among the masses gathering around Kabul airport displaying their credentials or proof they had worked on US facilities.
Growing reports of Taliban militants going door-to-door seeking people who had cooperated with the former regime and frightening them into joining the Taliban added to the urgency of the evacuation of those aligned with US and Nato forces, as well as western media organizations.
When the Taliban came seeking for the journalist, who had already departed the country, a family member of one of its reporters was shot and murdered, according to a German station.
Despite the Taliban pledging only days earlier that they would pursue "no revenge" and that "nobody will come to their doors to ask why they helped," the manhunt has continued.
On Thursday, Taliban fighters and checkpoints continued to surround the airport, posing significant obstacles for Afghans who fear retaliation for past collaboration with foreigners. According to the non-profit organization No One Left Behind, more than 300 Afghan translators and their families were executed by terrorists prior to Afghanistan falling under Taliban rule because of their US links.
Hundreds of Afghans who lacked papers or approval for evacuation gathered outside the airport, adding to the confusion that has stopped even some Afghans with papers and flight guarantees from boarding.
Since August 14, roughly 9,000 individuals have been evacuated, according to the White House. Earlier in the day, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in Washington that 6,000 individuals had been authorized for evacuation and would be boarding military planes in the coming hours. That was a significant increase over recent days, but it was still well short of the 5,000 to 9,000 per day evacuation capacity that the US claimed was achievable with available military planes.
Due to the obstacles around the airport, the US has only flown out approximately 2,000 passengers each of the last two days. According to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, measures are being made to expedite the process, including the hiring of more employees to review visa applications and the opening of additional entry gates at the airport.
Even before the Taliban took complete control of Afghanistan, the US was dealing with a massive backlog in processing Special Immigrant Visas for people who had assisted the US troops in the country, due in part to the coronavirus that had halted operations for months. 18,000 Afghan supporters and 53,000 family members were still awaiting processing earlier this year.
The number of individuals in need of evacuation — whether Americans, Afghans or anyone – is difficult to estimate because the procedure is virtually completely self-selecting. It is believed that 11,000 to 15,000 US nationals and dual US-Afghan citizens, as well as their family members, are at risk, with tens of thousands of Afghans also in danger.
To add to the confusion, the US administration has no means of knowing how many registered Americans have already departed Afghanistan. Some may have returned to the US, while others may have fled to third-world nations.
Democratic Representative Seth Moulton, a veteran Marine who spent four deployments in Iraq, branded the Biden administration's efforts to evacuate US citizens and Afghan friends the "greatest foreign policy disaster" in recent memory.
Concerns about the safety of individuals who were trapped grew. The Taliban had begun knocking on houses and gathering up Afghans on a blacklist of persons who had worked with the former administration, according to a report by a Norwegian intelligence agency.
The Taliban shot and murdered a family member of one of Deutsche Welle's reporters in Afghanistan, and badly injured a second family member, according to the German public broadcaster.
Taliban militants were seeking for the Deutsche Welle reporter and scouring residences in western Afghanistan, the broadcaster reported in a statement on Thursday. Other members of the family, according to the report, were able to flee. The reporter, whose name was not revealed, was already stationed in Germany, according to Deutsche Welle.
Some Afghan journalists have expressed their dissatisfaction with pledges that independent media will be permitted.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, foreign secretary Dominic Raab is under increasing pressure to quit for his handling of the situation, with the opposition Labour Party warning that the British government had committed an "unforgivable failure of leadership."
The party has compiled a list of 18 pressing questions for the foreign secretary to respond to on his trip and his department's handling of the issue.
On the 13th of August, two days before the Taliban marched on Kabul, Raab, who rejected calls to resign on Thursday, was reportedly "unavailable" when officials in his department suggested he "urgently" call Afghan foreign minister Hanif Atmar to arrange assistance for those who supported British troops.
On Thursday, it was reported that the Afghan foreign ministry declined to schedule a meeting with a junior minister, delaying it until the next day. It has recently been shown that no call was ever made.
