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BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Western allies will not be able to fly every Afghan who needs protection out of Kabul before the United States’ planned August 31 withdrawal deadline, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Tuesday. “Even if (the evacuation) goes on until August 31 or even a few days longer, it will not be enough to allow those who we, or the United States, want to fly out,” Maas told Bild TV. Allies […]
by Paul HANDLEY WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Around 16,000 people were evacuated over the past 24 hours from Afghanistan through the Kabul airport, the Pentagon said Monday, as the US works toward completing its airlift by an August 31 deadline. General Hank Taylor told reporters that 61 military, commercial and charter flights involving a number of countries flew out from Hamid Karzai International Airport in the 24 hours to 3:00 am Monday (0700 GMT) […]
MELSBROEK, Belgium (AFP) — A charter flight arrived at a Belgian air base outside Brussels on Monday carrying 193 people escaping the chaos in Kabul. The Air Belgium jet brought the escapees — including Belgians and Afghans who worked for international missions — from an Islamabad base acting as a staging post for Belgium’s military airlift from the Afghan capital. AFP and other media at the Belgian air base saw people disembarking from the plane […]
The United States on Sunday enlisted several major airlines in its frantic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and other foreigners from Kabul following its fall to Taliban extremists. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin activated the rarely-used Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) to aid the onward movement of people arriving at US bases in the Middle East, the Pentagon said. “We’re going to try our very best to get everybody, every American […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A heart-breaking video showing a US Marine lifting a baby over a razor wire-topped wall at Kabul’s airport caught global attention Friday, amid the chaos of thousands trying to flee Afghanistan newly controlled by the Taliban. The video, which shows the infant, its diaper slipping off, being pulled up by one arm high above a crowd of Afghans seeking to enter the airport, took over social media nearly one week […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US officials confirmed that evacuation operations from Afghanistan stalled for several hours Friday because the receiving base in Qatar was overflowing and could not receive evacuees. US airlift flights out of the Kabul airport stopped for around seven hours as thousands of Afghans already flown to a US base in Qatar overwhelmed its capacity, said Major General Hank Taylor. That left thousands more Afghans already cleared to leave their […]
(Eagle News) – An overseas Filipino worker tells his story of how he was able to leave Afghanistan and save other Filipinos stranded in the capital of Kabul. Elmer Presa posted on his Facebook page photos of him and other Filipino workers who managed to get a ride on a United States military plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul Afghanistan. In his post, he also thanked the US Airforce for their […]
by Jay DESHMUKH KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — Outside the main iron gate of the Indian embassy in Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters waited — armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Inside the compound were 150 Indian diplomats and nationals — growing increasingly nervous as they watched news of the Taliban tightening their grip on the capital, which they took a day earlier without a fight. Their position was a precarious one. Pakistan […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US military has evacuated more than 3,200 people from Afghanistan so far, including 1,100 on Tuesday alone, a White House official said. “Today, US military flights evacuated approximately 1,100 US citizens, US permanent residents, and their families on 13 flights,” the official said, adding: “Now that we have established the flow, we expect those numbers to escalate.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that the […]
BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is planning to deploy soldiers to Afghanistan to help with the evacuation of German nationals and Afghans in danger from the Taliban, parliamentary sources said Monday. The government will seek a mandate from parliament to allow the deployment of as many as “several hundred soldiers”, the sources told AFP, citing a briefing by Merkel to leaders of parliamentary groups late Sunday. “An ‘air bridge’ is to be […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Three Swiss nationals have been successfully evacuated from the fallen Afghan capital Kabul and efforts are under way to extract their Afghan colleagues, Switzerland’s foreign minister said Monday. “We were able to get our three employees from the SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) office in Kabul out of the country with the help of our partners,” Ignazio Cassis said in a tweet. “They are on their way to Switzerland.” […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France will evacuate its first nationals from the fallen Afghan capital Kabul to a base in the United Arab Emirates by Monday evening, defense minister Florence Parly said. “We are planning to carry out the first rotation between now and the end of this Monday,” Parly said on France Info radio, adding there were several dozens of French citizens to be evacuated along “with people under our protection.” © Agence France-Presse
