About 200 non-Afghans are set to depart on charter flights from Kabul airport on Thursday, according to news agencies. Reports suggest that the foreigners allowed to leave Afghanistan include 30 Americans in the first airlift since the final US withdrawal and the first international flights to take off since the Taliban took control of Kabul in mid-August.
Not all 200 are US citizens. There are American citizens amongst the group departing Kabul to Doha,” news agency AFP quoted a person in Doha, who was briefed on the operation, as saying.
The Taliban have allowed the departure of charter flights carrying non-Afghans two days after the Islamist hardliners announced an interim government headed by Mullah Hassan Akhund. A US official claimed that the Taliban were pressed by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to allow the departures, Reuters reported.
Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV broadcasted the visuals from Hamid Karzai International Airport which showed women, children, and the elderly waiting there with suitcases.
Earlier this week, a Qatari technical team landed at Kabul airport aboard the country’s flagship carrier Qatar Airways to discuss reopening the airport. Qatar’s foreign minister had said that the Gulf nation was working with the Taliban to reopen the airport as soon as possible and urged the insurgents to allow Afghans to leave.
While the Taliban have shown interest in engaging with regional and Western governments, most of the democratic countries are apprehensive about the assurance given by the insurgents regarding inclusivity and human rights. The all-male members of the newly-announced Taliban-led government, with almost no ethnic diversity, have done little to address the concerns of democratic countries.
