Deadly shootouts erupt at Kabul airport as evacuation chaos continues

A shooting erupted into chaos at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport early Monday morning as foreign forces continued to assist with evacuations and thousands of Afghans attempted to flee the country taken by the Taliban a year ago. week.

An Afghan security staff member was killed and three others wounded when the shootout broke out between Afghan security forces and unknown assailants, the official German Joint Forces Operations Command account said in a tweet on Monday.

The German military also said that American and German forces were participating in the advance of the fighting, but that all German forces on the ground were unharmed.

Last week at Kabul airport, footage of desperation saw mothers handing their babies over to foreign soldiers over barbed wire walls and Afghan civilians clinging to planes as they took off in an desperate attempt to flee their country.

The violence comes as Joe Biden’s administration grapples with a torrent of criticism over the fallout from his withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden said on Sunday that the US military had evacuated 28,000 people from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, but that several thousand Americans are still there. The Pentagon said last week that the US military could not ensure a safe passage for Americans to Kabul airport, despite several thousand forces currently on the ground.

On Sunday, Biden activated the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, a rarely used program by which the Pentagon ordered civilian airlines to provide planes to help speed up evacuation efforts in Afghanistan. The activation concerns 18 planes from six airlines.

The administration is considering extending the deadline for the full troop withdrawal beyond its original Aug.31 date, Biden added.

“Our hope is that we won’t have to prolong it, but there are going to be discussions, I guess, on the state of play of the process,” he said.

But the Taliban will not extend the August 31 deadline, according to a Reuters report citing two anonymous Taliban sources. The sources added that no Western authority had contacted the group about the extension of the deadline.

Speaking to the press during a visit to Singapore on Monday, Vice President Kamal Harris said: “At the moment, we are particularly focused on the evacuation of the American citizens, the Afghans who have worked with us and the Vulnerable Afghans, including women and children “.

“We have a responsibility and we feel deeply committed to making sure the people who have helped us are safe,” Harris added, saying there should be a “solid analysis of what happened” later.

Despite his assurances, Afghan staff working at the US embassy in Kabul feel “deeply discouraged” by the US evacuation efforts, according to a diplomatic cable seen by NBC News.

The Taliban, with whom the United States negotiated a ceasefire agreement, made a series of stunning gains across the country and finally seized the center of power in Kabul on August 15, taking virtually complete control. from the country in about 10 days.

As a result, Islamic extremist militants now have access to billions of dollars in American weapons handed over by the Afghan military, which the United States has trained and equipped for two decades.

And tens of thousands of Afghans have desperately tried to escape, especially those who have worked with U.S. personnel and fear Taliban retaliation. While Biden said these Afghans will be supported, advocacy groups say up to 20,000 people remain in the country, unable to board an evacuation flight due to bureaucratic barriers or lack of passage. safe to Kabul airport.