The Taliban have taken Kabul – and the people are fleeing from them. Chaos breaks out at the airport, and at the same time the evacuation of German citizens and Afghan local staff has begun – much too late, as the opposition criticizes.
After the takeover of Kabul by the militant Islamist Taliban, dramatic scenes take place at the airport in the Afghan capital. Hundreds of people have been driving to the airport since Sunday trying to get on flights, as shown by videos and pictures shared on social media. People climbed over turntable ladders to get on a plane. Even Afghans who didn’t even have passports would try their luck, said residents of Kabul.
There were also the first unconfirmed reports on Sunday that people had died at the airport. Before that, there had been reports that US soldiers securing the airport were firing warning shots.
40 embassy employees flown out
In the meantime, the evacuation of German citizens from the Afghan capital has also begun. According to information from the DPA news agency, 40 employees of the German embassy landed on a US plane in Doha in the Gulf emirate of Qatar on Monday night.
A few hours later, in the early morning, the first Bundeswehr military machine started with German soldiers on board to secure the evacuation. The paratroopers of the Rapid Forces Division are specially trained for such missions. German military police (“Feldjäger”) and Bundeswehr medic are also involved.
It is probably the Bundeswehr’s largest evacuation mission to date – and a particularly explosive one. “One thing is certain: It is a dangerous mission for our soldiers,” wrote the Ministry of Defense. The Bundeswehr had only withdrawn from Afghanistan at the end of June after a 20-year deployment.
In the past few days, the Taliban had taken one city after another at a rapid pace, some of them without a fight, had recently also invaded the capital Kabul and already have the presidential palace under their control. In view of the dramatic situation on Friday, the federal government decided to reduce the embassy staff to a minimum. On Sunday, all employees were taken to the airport, which is secured by thousands of US soldiers.
Bundeswehr with “airlift”
The first evacuation flight was done with a US machine. The campaign is to be continued with the Bundeswehr machines of the type A400M. Over the next few days, they are to be a central component of an “airlift” via which, in addition to the embassy staff, other German citizens and local staff who have worked or are still working for the Bundeswehr or federal ministries in Afghanistan will also be brought to Germany.
The planes, which offer space for 114 passengers and have special protection against attacks, for example with rockets, will initially fly the victims to Tashkent in neighboring Uzbekistan. From there it goes on to Germany with civilian machines.
The total number of German citizens who were still in Kabul by Sunday was estimated at more than 100. It was unclear until the very end how many local employees are involved. It is definitely a four-digit number. Most recently, 1,100 Afghans were still working on behalf of Germany in state development aid alone. In addition, there are thousands of former local members of the armed forces or the federal ministries.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said that the Taliban’s takeover of power was imminent. In this situation, the security of German nationals and Afghan employees must have “top priority” in recent years.
According to Maas, an “operational core team” from the embassy in Kabul will remain at the militarily secured part of the airport in order to keep the embassy in working order and to accompany the further evacuation measures. The actual embassy building was closed.
“We are now doing everything we can to enable our nationals and our former local staff to leave the country in the coming days,” said Maas. “The circumstances under which this can take place are difficult to predict at the moment.” That is why the federal government is in close contact with the USA and other international partners.
Is use approved retrospectively?
In the cabinet meeting this Wednesday, the mandate for the Federal Armed Forces deployment is to be decided. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) informed the chairmen of the parliamentary groups over the phone, as the DPA learned from participants. In the following week, the Bundestag should discuss and decide on this. Anyway, on August 25, parliament will hold a special session to decide on aid for the flood areas. Then the evacuation operation should also come on the agenda. In the case of imminent danger, armed Bundeswehr operations can, as in this case, also be mandated retrospectively by parliament.
There is massive criticism from the opposition about the pace of the evacuation. The FDP external expert Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told the “world” that Maas, Kramp-Karrenbauer and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer had “failed all along the line”. The campaign also started too late for the Greens parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter. “You have to ask yourself why the German government seems so surprised by the Taliban’s rapid advance,” he told the DPA. The federal government must act very quickly now.
The parliamentary group leader of the Left in the Bundestag, Jan Korte, called the actions of Maas in particular “scandalous”. Korte accused the Foreign Minister of endangering human life. AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland criticized in the “Welt” that the federal government had “overslept” at the right time for the evacuation.
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