KABUL, Afghanistan — In the eight days since tens of thousands converged on Kabul’s airport to flee an Afghanistan under Taliban rule, critics and allies alike have blasted President Joe Biden’s insistence on the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. and NATO troop withdrawal, urging him to delay so as to complete an airlift of foreign residents and Afghan allies.
He may now have to show that stubborn streak with the Taliban — but in the opposite direction.
Though there have been improvements in organizing entry for those with the necessary permission to leave, chaos has persisted, presenting an insurmountable challenge to many who are unable to run the gantlet and reach American forces on the other side of the barriers.
That has put pressure on Biden to extend the withdrawal deadline, something British and European leaders are expected to push for when they meet with the president at the Group of 7 summit since they cannot secure the airport without the contingent of U.S. troops in place.
But Biden is set to have a harder time convincing the Taliban, which have already indicated they refuse any delay.
“It’s a red line. President Biden announced that on 31 August they would withdraw all their military forces. So if they extend it that means they are extending occupation while there is no need for that,” said Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen in an interview with Sky News. “If the U.S. or U.K. were to seek additional time to continue evacuations, the answer is no. Or there would be consequences.”
In a response to whether the Biden administration accepts that the Taliban is dictating if it gets to stay longer, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters at the White House on Monday that the U.S. is in close contact with the Taliban on a number of logistical and security matters.
“Ultimately, it will be the president’s decision how this proceeds,” Sullivan said. " No one else’s.”
Yet, he hinted the question to extend or not may soon be moot.
“In the days remaining, we believe we have the wherewithal to get out the Americans who want to leave Kabul,” he said.
With the airlift now a race to finish what amounts to a massive population transfer in a little over a week, evacuations out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul have accelerated significantly in the last hours, U.S. officials announced Monday, in part because U.S. troops are now actively leaving the airport to escort stranded Americans and allies into the airfield perimeter.
In the last 24-hour period, 16,000 people were transported out of the country, bringing to 42,000 since the end of July and including “several thousand” U.S. citizens, the Pentagon said. Previously the Pentagon had said its “capacity goal” for airlifts was only 9,000 per day.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said last week that the U.S. did not have sufficient troop power to conduct rescue missions outside the airport, whose perimeter is largely controlled by the Taliban. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday that with the deployment of 5,800 U.S. troops, it now has the “capability.”
“When we can and where we can help Americans move towards the gates … we do have those capabilities,” Kirby said at a Pentagon briefing.
“Our commanders have the authority that they need to use their assets and their forces to help assist Americans who need to get to the airport … on a case by case basis,” Kirby said. “I don’t want to leave you with the idea that we’re somehow patrolling the streets of Kabul. But on occasion, where there’s a need and there’s a capability to meet that need, our commanders on the ground are doing what they feel they need to do to help Americans reach the airport.”
Kirby chose his words carefully and did not enter into details. It was the most concrete confirmation to date that U.S. troops are conducting missions beyond the airport perimeter.
He did say, however, that there are no joint patrols of American and Taliban forces.
The logistical challenges are enormous and have turned Hamid Karzai International Airport into a suburb-wide traffic jam both on the ground and in the sky. After flying out of Kabul, U.S. citizens and Afghans and other nationals are processed in other countries, Sullivan said. That includes Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Italy, Spain and Germany. And upon passing background checks, they are flown on to the U.S. and 25 other nations on four continents that have opted to receive refugees.
But first they have to pass the outer gates. Security at the airport’s perimeter is being handled by the Taliban and remnants of the U.S.-supported Afghan security forces, which collapsed before the Taliban’s onslaught in the last weeks; some have joined the Taliban to assist in policing the masses at the gates.
Insofar as one can say they have succeeded, it has only been with pitiless and sometimes lethal force, with a stream of bullets haphazardly fired as a form of crowd control.
But death comes in different ways at the gates, including getting steamrolled under the stampede at the entrance, suffocation from dust, heat or the crush of the thousands frantically trying to reach the tarmac. A NATO official, speaking to Reuters on Sunday, said at least 20 people had died — seven of them that same day.
Monday brought a fresh danger when a firefight flared up at the periphery of Kabul’s airport between Afghan forces and unknown attackers, leaving one soldier dead and at least three others wounded.
The German defense ministry was the first to announce the incident, tweeting that the shooting occurred Monday at 4:13 a.m. and involved German as well as American troops. There were no casualties among the German forces.
A statement from U.S. Central Command spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said no U.S. or coalition forces were hurt in what he described as a “brief exchange of gunfire outside the north gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport.”
“The Incident appeared to begin when an unknown hostile actor fired upon Afghan security forces involved in monitoring access to the gate. The Afghans returned fire, and in keeping with their right of self-defense, so too did U.S. and coalition troops.”
He added that the wounded Afghan soldiers were being treated at an airfield hospital and were in stable condition.
“Our condolences go out to the teammates and loved ones of the fallen Afghan soldier.”
Biden also said Sunday that the U.S. was implementing plans to create safe passages for American citizens to be brought into the airport. Meanwhile, Washington activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a program first begun during the Berlin airlift, which would include 18 aircraft from U.S. carriers to pick up Afghan refugees from half-way points in the Middle East to destinations around the world. On Monday, the U.S. Embassy sent messages to American citizens in the country to report to a compound in the city with family members — excluding children over 21 — and only small bags so as to be transported to the airport for their evacuation flight.
In their speeches and press statements, meanwhile, Taliban officials continue to exhort their fellow citizens to stay, insisting that there is a blanket amnesty for former government officials, their enemies in the security services as well as those who worked with foreign groups operating in the country.
On Monday afternoon, the Taliban’s Preaching and Guidance Commission held a religious summit at a large, well-appointed auditorium in Kabul Polytechnic University.
Before the summit began, hundreds of religious leaders assembled at the pristine gardens outside. Many took off their shoes or sandals and sat down to relax on the grass under the shade of a line of trees, under the watch of uniformed soldiers with wrap-around shades, knee and elbow pads and serious faces.
After a raft of speakers to whet the crowd’s appetite came the Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, a figure whose face had never been seen until his first news conference last week.
“Everyone is safe,” he said before a rapt audience of adherents, adding that preachers should also encourage people to remain and that there was no need to evacuate.
“Those who have left Afghanistan are not in any danger if they return.”
In a bid to underscore that message, the Taliban had on Sunday begun to remove the concrete barriers placed throughout Kabul. They had been installed in the first place against Taliban suicide bombs.
Other public relations moves are meant to portray a changed, more genteel Taliban. Whenever the Afghan green-red-and-black tricolor is encountered, they reverently fold it and replace it with their own white banner. On Monday, some of the group’s officials posed with the captain of the Afghan national team and posted the pictures on its official Arabic-language account. The accompanying tweet claimed there was a discussion of future programs and ways to improve the performance and standard of the team.”
But other actions seem to indicate a less tolerant view.
In recent days there have been reports of a wide-scale manhunt for their adversaries among security and intelligence personnel or prominent civil society activists.
And small but determined pockets of resistance to Taliban rule persist in Baghlan and Panjshir, two provinces in the country’s northeast; the latter has long been an anti-Taliban bastion and remains the only part of the country yet to fall into their hands. The resistance includes Ahmad Massoud, son of the famed guerrilla commander who battled the Soviet Union and the Taliban before being killed by assassins thought to be linked to Al Qaeda two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
On Sunday, fighters in Baghlan claimed they had taken three provinces in the Andarab valley. But a day later the Taliban snatched them back, the group said, and had surrounded Panjshir.
In his speech, Mujahid said “the anti-Taliban coalition” was under siege.
“But the Taliban are trying to resolve the issue through talks instead of fighting,” he said.
But there seemed little overt dissent against the Taliban in Kabul, the city most transformed by America’s 20-year effort to develop Afghanistan.
Although banks remain closed, markets were open, with men as well as a number of women — most of whom were dressed in hijab rather than the more conservative burqa — strolling among stalls loaded with clothes, dried fruits, spices, cookware and knock-off electronics. The Taliban said they would reopen financial institutions next week.
And at the Loya Jirga, Mujahid emphasized that crime had fallen and that the Taliban had brought safety and security to the capital and other areas of the country. Far from retribution, the Taliban’s focus was on the country’s future.
“We will become self-reliant,” he said.
“Our people are thirsty for economic development.”
Los Angeles Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Eli Stokols in Washington contributed to this report.
