US warned ISIS was rebuilding in Afghanistan and feared attempting to attack Kabul airport

ISIS’s potential threats to Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the US military to develop new ways to bring evacuees to Kabul airport.a senior US official said on Saturday, adding yet another complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its rapid fall to the Taliban.

The official said that small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians will be given specific instructions on what to do, including transport to transit points where they can be picked up by the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the military operations.

The changes come as the U.S. Embassy issued a new security advisory on Saturday telling citizens not to travel to Kabul airport without individual instructions from a U.S. government official. Officials declined to give details of the ISUS threat, but described it as significant. They said the attacks had not yet been confirmed.

Time is running out before President Joe Biden’s deadline for withdrawing most of the remaining US troops. In his remarks on the situation on Friday, he did not promise to expand it, although he did make a new pledge to evacuate not only all Americans in Afghanistan, but also the tens of thousands of Afghans who have contributed to the war effort since September 11, 2001. This pledge would dramatically increase the number of people evacuated by the United States.

Biden faces mounting criticism as videos show pandemonium and occasional violence outside the airport, and vulnerable Afghans who fear Taliban retaliation send desperate appeals not to be left behind.

The Islamic State group – which has long declared its willingness to attack the United States and its interests abroad – has been operating in Afghanistan for several years., leading waves of horrific attacks, especially against the Shiite minority. The group has been the target of repeated US airstrikes in recent years, as well as attacks by the Taliban. However, officials claim that Fragments of the group remain active in Afghanistan, and the United States fears it may recover more broadly as the country falls under Taliban rule.

Despite the warning from the US Embassy, ​​crowds remain in front of concrete barriers at Kabul airport, hanging on documents and sometimes with dazed-looking children prevented from flying with spools of wire barbed.

Meanwhile, the Taliban’s top political leader has arrived in Kabul for talks on forming a new government. The presence of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who returned to Kandahar earlier this week from Qatar, was confirmed by a Taliban official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Baradar negotiated the religious movement’s 2020 peace deal with the United States and is now expected to play a key role in negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan government officials that the militant group toppled.

Afghan officials familiar with the talks in the capital say the Taliban have said They will not make any announcements regarding their government until the August 31 deadline for troop withdrawal.

Abdullah Abdullah, an alto cargo del gobierno depuesto, tuiteó que él y el ex presidente Hamid Karzai reunieron el sábado con el gobernador en funciones de los talibanes para Kabul, quien “nos aseguró que haría todo lo posible por la seguridad de la gente” from the city.

Evacuations continued, although some outbound flights were far from full due to the chaos at the airport. The German military said in a tweet that a plane left Kabul on Saturday with 205 evacuees, while a second plane carried only 20. Italy’s Defense Ministry announced on Saturday the evacuation of 211 Afghans, which brought the number of Afghan workers to 2,100. in Italian missions and their families who were safely evacuated.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday around 1,000 people a day were being evacuated as part of “stabilization” at the airport. But on Saturday, a former royal sailor turned director of a charity in Afghanistan said the situation was getting worse, not better.

“We cannot leave the country because we cannot enter the airport without endangering our lives,” Paul Farthing told BBC radio.

Army Major General Hank Taylor, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for regional operations, told Pentagon reporters on Saturday that The United States has evacuated 17,000 people via Kabul airport since August 15. About 2,500 were American, he said. US officials have estimated there are as many as 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but admit they don’t have reliable numbers. On the last day, some 3,800 civilians were evacuated from Afghanistan using a combination of US military and charter flights, Taylor said. Three Afghan evacuee flights have arrived at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, DC

Evacuations were hampered by checkpoints and logistical tensions at intermediate stations such as al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. U.S. officials said they have a limited number of inspectors and are fighting to fix flaws in inspection systems.

Taylor said Kabul airport remains open and Americans continue to be chased if they reach the gates, but he and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the threat landscape is changing. hour by hour. “We know we are fighting against time and space,” Kirby said. “This is the race we are in right now.”

The Biden administration was exploring the possibility of asking U.S. commercial airlines to provide planes and crews to help transport Afghan refugees once they are evacuated from their country by military planes. As part of the Voluntary Civilian Reserve Air Fleet program, civilian airlines are increasing the capacity of military aircraft during a national defense crisis.

The transport command The United States announced on Saturday that it had issued a warning to American carriers on Friday evening regarding the possible activation of the program. If used, commercial airlines would transport evacuees from transit stations outside of Afghanistan to another country or from Virginia Dulles International Airport to US military bases.

So far, 13 countries have agreed to take in Afghans at risk, at least temporarilysaid US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Twelve others agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.

“We are tired. We are happy. Now we are in a safe country,” said an Afghan on his arrival in Italy with 79 fellow citizens, in a video released by the country’s defense ministry.

But the growing question for many other Afghans is: which country will they finally call home? EU leaders, who fear a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis, are already signaling that fleeing Afghans who did not help Western forces during the war should stay in neighboring countries.

Staying in Afghanistan means adjusting to life under the Taliban, who say they are seeking an “inclusive and Islamic” government, offering full amnesty to those who have worked for the United States and the Western-backed government and who are became more moderate since the last time they were in power, between 1996 and 2001. They also declared – without giving further details – that they would respect the rights of women within the norms of Islamic law. However, Many Afghans fear a return to the harsh Taliban rule in the late 1990s, when the group banned women from going to school or working outside the home, banned television and music, cut off the hands of suspected thieves and carried out public executions.

“Today some of my friends went to work in court and the Taliban wouldn’t let them into their offices. They showed their weapons and said: “You cannot work in this government if you worked in the previous one,” an activist from Kabul told The Associated Press on Saturday. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. With a Turkish visa but no way to get to the airport safely, the activist called the gap between the words and actions of the Taliban “very alarming”.

With AP information

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