Shrouq Tariq
A pair of bomb attacks that caused US and civilian casualties outside Kabul airport Thursday rocked the frantic final stages of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with time fast running out to rescue up to 1,500 Americans, and the fate of fleeing Afghans looking darker by the hour.
The attack came a day after a US defense official had told CNN that officials were alarmed by a “very specific threat stream” about the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, which planned to attack crowds outside the airfield.
The question now is how the long-feared attacks will influence the rest of the evacuation. And how long the Pentagon will give the operation before it transitions to a mission to extract thousands of troops and material, which could take several days and curtail the departures of noncombatants.
That means a race against the clock to find and extract the remaining Americans who want to leave and likely means that thousands of Afghan translators and others could be left behind, in a final tragedy of America’s longest war.
Among Americans still in the country are about 20 students from San Diego and their families who traveled to Afghanistan this summer and have been unable to get to Kabul’s airport, school, and congressional.
Afghans who do manage to get out of the country are not being flown directly to the US. Many are being taken to holding centers in third countries, including Qatar. But those who have undergone security vetting and health checks have already begun to stream into the United States.
Australia and New Zealand have both ended their evacuation flights from Kabul, as Afghanistan reels from the deadly bombing attacks.
New Zealand’s final evacuation flight had landed in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday night local time, before the attacks took place. No members of the national defense force were in Kabul at the time of the attack, and no New Zealanders were left at the airport, the government said.
However, there are still New Zealand citizens in Afghanistan, who are in contact with the Foreign Ministry.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there would be no more evacuation flights from Kabul.
Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton also confirmed Australia has finished the country’s evacuation mission.
He added on Friday that he was “grateful” for the work of Australian forces and commended their success of evacuating more than 4,000 people from Kabul.
He called the attack “horrific,” and said it wasn’t clear if there were any Australians caught up in the attacks, but added the country’s Foreign Ministry had sent a message to all Australian citizens to steer clear of the airport.
For Australian citizens that might still be in Afghanistan, many will likely try to make their way to other borders, he said.
Belgium, Poland and Czech Republic have already ended evacuations from Kabul.
Spain has concluded its evacuation of personnel from Afghanistan and all its diplomatic staff are safe in Dubai, newspaper El Pais reports, citing government sources.
The UK defense secretary, Ben Wallace, insisted the Kabul airport terror attack “didn’t hasten our departure” and the main UK evacuee processing site was closed “almost exactly on schedule”. The UK has entered the final stages of its Afghanistan evacuation operation and no more people will be called forward to the airport to leave, the Ministry of Defense has said.
Shrouq Tariq is the Research Analyst and writer at Matrix Media. Her work has been published in number of national and international newspapers . She’s also a member of the Matrix Media editorial board. She is currently completing her MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaid-i-Azam university. She tweets at @shrouqtariq
