Afghanistan live news desperate crowds at Kabul airport as Afghans try to escape Taliban

Women in media in Kabul tell of trying to destroy traces of their identity as they brace for Taliban retribution, Kate Banville reports:

On US President Biden’s leadership over Afghanistan, UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said: “The die was cast when the deal was done by Donald Trump if you want my observation.”
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

President Biden inherited a momentum, a momentum that had been given to the Taliban because they felt they had now won, he’d also inherited a momentum of troop withdrawal from the international community, the US.

So I think in that sense, the seeds of what we’re seeing today were before President Biden took office. The seeds were a peace deal that was (effectively) rushed, that wasn’t done in collaboration properly with the international community and then a dividend taken out incredibly quickly.

Emmanuel Macron is holding an emergency defence council meeting today and will make a televised statement about Afghanistan at 8pm French time.

France is saying the security of its citizens is an “absolute priority” and is making plans to evacuate them. The French embassy has been “relocated” to Kabul airport. France has been advising its nationals to leave Afghanistan since April and organised a first repatriation flight in July.

Florence Parly, the armies minister, has announced two transport planes are being despatched to the French military base at Abu Dhabi in the UAE and will begin evacuating people from the Afghan capital late on Monday.

She said the planes would also evacuate “Afghans who have rendered very distinguished services to our armies”.

France has also halted the expulsion of Afghans whose asylum applications have been turned down.

Russia said its ambassador to Afghanistan would meet with the Taliban in Kabul on Tuesday and will decide on whether to recognise the new government based on its conduct, AFP reports.

“Our ambassador is in contact with the Taliban leadership, tomorrow he will meet with the Taliban security coordinator,” a foreign ministry official, Zamir Kabulov, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Monday.

He said the talks between Moscow’s ambassador, Dmitry Zhirnov, and the Taliban would centre on how the group plans to provide security for the Russian embassy in the Afghan capital.

On Sunday, as the Taliban completed their military takeover of Afganistan, Kabulov said Russia had no plans to evacuate its embassy â€" though on Monday he said “part” of its staff would be evacuated.

Kabulov also said Moscow would decide on recognising the new Taliban government based “on the conduct of the new authorities”. “We will carefully see how responsibly they govern the country in the near future. And based on the results, the Russian leadership will draw the necessary conclusions,” Kabulov said.

Afghans crowd Kabul airport as they wait to leave.

The UK MP Tobias Ellwood, a former captain in the British army who is chairman of the defence select committee, criticised the west for pulling out of Afghanistan.

Appearing on Sky News, he said: “The world is now a little bit more dangerous because they’ve now taken control of the country, and the west should really hang its head in shame after abruptly abandoning Afghanistan to a civil war after two decades of effort.”

He added: “This is not a good day for the west at all, and China will be observing things very, very closely indeed. They are already making alliances with the Taliban and glossing over the human rights atrocities that are likely to unfold.”

Pakistan’s state-run airline says it has halted all flights to Kabul because of the “uncertain security situation” there.

Spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez said Pakistan International Airlines decided to protect passengers, the crew and the planes after consulting the Afghan civil aviation authorities, AP reports.

The Chinese embassy in Kabul has no plans to evacuate its staff, the outpost has signalled.

“The Chinese embassy has requested various factions in Afghanistan to ensure the safety of Chinese nations, Chinese institutions and Chinese interests,” it said.

“The embassy will take further steps to remind Chinese nationals to closely follow the security situation, increase safety precautions and to refrain from going outside.”

In a statement on its website the embassy said the situation in Kabul had become “extremely complex and severe” and they were in close contact with Chinese citizens in Afghanistan. The decision not to evacuate has also been taken by Russia. Neither Russia or China were signatories to today’s joint statement by 65 counties calling on all parties to facilitate the safe departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who want to leave.

China’s government has said little on the weekend’s events in Afghanistan, but an analysis by Reuters correspondent Yew Lun Tian, published today, noted China’s propaganda apparatus had already begun laying the groundwork for the country’s citizens to accept that Beijing might have to recognise the Taliban.

“This is us being pragmatic. How you want to rule your country is largely your own business, just don’t let that affect China,” Lin Minwang, a South Asia expert with Shanghai’s Fudan University, told Reuters.

“When a major Asian power like China shows it recognises Taliban’s political legitimacy by meeting them so openly, it is giving the Taliban a big diplomatic win,” Lin said.

Taliban officials visited China in July, and met with the foreign minister, Wang Yi. After the meeting the Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said they saw China as a “friend” to Afghanistan and they hoped to talk to Beijing about investment in reconstruction work.

China’s state media has reported quite extensively on the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Much of it has focused on the failures of the US. CCTV, the main state channel, posted on Weibo: “Twenty years of war did not bring steady and safe to the country that is protected by the United States, instead it brought violence, and more disasters.” A China Daily editorial called the withdrawal “humiliating and deleterious”.

The Global Times has also reported on protests in front of the White House. In a series of Weibo posts, the nationalistic tabloid has also published old clips from the end of the Vietnam war, including very similar photographs of the Saigon evacuation and scenes from Kabul, a now viral clip of the US president, Joe Biden, saying the Afghan government would not collapse, and a critical report from the Washington Post (which is blocked in China).

Italy has evacuated 70 embassy staff and Afghan employees from Kabul, AP reports. The plane was scheduled to arrive in Rome on Monday. The evacuation is part of Italy’s Operation Aquila Omnia (Eagle Ready for Anything) to quickly evacuate Italian diplomatic staff, citizens and Afghan employees and family members. Italy had one of the largest contingents in Afghanistan before the pullout.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said British and US forces, as well as forces from other nations, were continuing to fly people out of Kabul airport.

He told BBC Breakfast: “We put in over 600 forces yesterday, today and over the weekend to make sure that we can keep a secure part of the airport functioning and, at the same time, to effectively process, manage and escort people onto our flights to get them out of Afghanistan.”

He said the government was aiming to fly out a further 1,500 people over the next 24 to 36 hours or slightly longer. Work was under way to “remove any bureaucratic barriers” to make sure people who pass screenings are able to be flown to the UK,” he added.

“We all see what we’re seeing, time is of the essence,” he said. “If we managed to keep it in the way we’re planning to, we should have capacity for over 1,000 people a day to exit to the United Kingdom.

“Currently, this is not about capacity on planes, it’s about processing speeds, so that’s why I’m trying to fix that.”

Reuters is reporting witness claims that at least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital.

One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the victims were killed by gunshots or in a stampede, Reuters said. US troops, who are in charge of the airport, earlier fired in the air to scatter the crowd, a US official said. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the deaths.

France said it would evacuate its first nationals and Afghan colleagues from Kabul to a base in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, AFP reports.

“We are planning to carry out the first rotation between now and the end of this Monday,” defence minister Florence Parly said, adding there were several dozen French citizens to be evacuated.

“We have organised at the base we have in the United Arab Emirates the capabilities to receive the first evacuees,” Parly said.

These are for French nationals who remain in Kabul but also “people under our protection and who we are going to evacuate”, Parly said.

Diplomatic personnel are included among the dozens of people set to be evacuated, she added.

The priority is to “evacuate (Afghan) personnel who rendered eminent service to our country by helping us daily, and also doing the maximum to provide protection to figures who defended the rights, human rights, journalists, artists, all those who stood for these values that we continue to defend around the world”, she said.

Asked if Nato was going to return and take over Kabul, UK defence secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News: “No, look that’s not on the cards that we’re going to go back.”

He added: “The US have made itself clear that they’re not intending to stay and as the framework nation that leaves us with difficult choices and I’ve been pretty much honest about that all the way through this process.”

On the airlift of British nationals, he added: “The military flights are coming in and out, they’ve just brought in more UK soldiers.

“Border Force is joining us to make sure that we accelerate the process to get more Afghans out, which is our obligation. We flew out 370 staff and British citizens, eligible personnel yesterday and the day before and we’ll continue to engage those flights.

“The next group of Afghans to come out will be 782 and we’ll make sure we get them in the next 24 to 36 hours out of the country and are continuing to process those people.”

He said of the Afghanistan evacuation: “We will do everything we can to bring as many people out as possible.”

Asked if the Taliban had changed, he replied: “It does not look like a change ... The leadership has a responsibility to make sure that it upholds human rights.”

Asked about the prospect of the Taliban flag flying over the UK embassy in Kabul, he said: “That’s the consequence of the Taliban, it’s not the embassy any more, we have left that location, we’ve drawn down within the airport ... symbolically it’s not what any of us wanted.”

Mark Sedwill, the UK ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009-10, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was not inevitable that the US and manner of its withdrawal would lead to this situation, but acknowledged “the speed of it has taken most of us by surprise”. Lord Sedwill said: “But it was precipitative and that’s the reason the Taliban have been able to take over at quite this pace.” And, he added, why people are so fearful about the future.

Asked if the UK, which has had troops on the ground for 20 years, did not bear some responsibility for the position the Afghan security forces were left in, he replied: “I think all Nato countries who have been involved for that period bear some responsibility,” adding, “but in the end this was a decision taken by the United States.”

It wasn’t, he said, “so much a case we hadn’t equipped the Afghan forces, it was the loss of confidence by those forces at the precipitant decision to withdraw the remaining western troops, the remaining western support. that caused the collapse in confidence that enabled the Taliban to take over so quickly.”

He added: “This is a humiliating moment for the west. We have Afghan citizens who are fearful. Extremists everywhere will be emboldened. They’ve been quieter since the end of the Islamic State, they will be emboldened.

“Of course our authoritarian opponents will undoubtedly be saying already that they have the strategic patience that we lack. So it is a very bad day.”

Asked if there was a real security threat posed to having the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, he replied: Yes. there is a direct and an indirect threat.” He said: “We saw terrorist attacks in this country not directed from the Islamic State but by people who were inspired by the existence of the Islamic State. That risk will doubtless be higher today.

“But of course there is a direct threat as well. We will have to see whether the Taliban will honour their commitment not to allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists and, indeed, traffickers as well.”

The UK must now work with China, Russia and Afghanistan’s neighbours to ensure Afghanistan does not become another source of terrorism, and put in place the right mixture of incentives and potential sanctions in order to ensure that isn’t the case, he said.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace has acknowledged that the Taliban “are in control” of Afghanistan, saying there is a sense of sadness in the recent events, PA reports.

He told Sky News: “I think we all saw that and felt a real sense of sadness that first of all the forces that the British and the international community had invested in had melted away in some areas so quickly.”

“You don’t fix things overnight in global issues, you have to manage them... when that deal was done a few years ago, what happened was ultimately we undermined the community - the deal undermined the Afghan government and left it in a place that ultimately saw the end... the river flows fastest towards the end and that is what we saw yesterday and it’s what we’re seeing in our pictures today.”

He added: “My job as as defence secretary is to make sure that we protect not only the UK nationals, but those Afghans we have an obligation to, that is actually why we’re in the country. For the last few weeks we’ve been in the country solely to process those people and to make sure we protect our officials doing that job and we’ll continue to do so.”

Asked if he acknowledged the Taliban had won the war, he said: “I don’t know about a win, I think, I acknowledge that the Taliban are in control of the country. You don’t have to be a political scientist to spot that’s where we’re at.”

Finland said it would close its embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul immediately and until further notice as a result of the security situation. “Diplomatic personnel are being evacuated from the country,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

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