Chaotic scenes continue to play out at Kabul airport. Taliban fighters fired warning shots on Thursday to push back the crowd that wanted to get onto the airport grounds. Numerous Afghans are desperately trying to get abroad on one of the evacuation flights of western countries, especially the USA. The Taliban have now set up checkpoints around the airport. For many, including citizens of Western countries, there is hardly any getting through.
US soldiers at the airport also want to prevent crowds from pouring uncontrolled onto the airfield. In addition, there is criticism from Germany that the Americans did not let any local German employees pass. The CNN journalist Clarissa Ward, one of the few foreign journalists still in Kabul, spoke of a “tornado of madness”. According to her, people threw babies over the airport fence to get them to safety. The Taliban are on the move with whips and weapons to hold the people back.
Regardless of the chaos, two people with Austrian citizenship were flown out of Kabul yesterday. 50 other Austrians with Afghan roots are currently still in and around Kabul. You are in contact with them, it said in the Foreign Ministry.
Currency reserves frozen
Because of the Taliban’s takeover, the US government and central bank have frozen most of Afghanistan’s currency reserves. The Afghan central bank chief Adschmal Ahmadi, who fled the country, said on Twitter that around seven billion dollars (six billion euros) of the reserves are in custody at the US central bank. Another two billion dollars are therefore invested elsewhere internationally.
The Taliban would therefore only have access to up to 0.2 percent of the currency reserves. Because significantly more US dollars were spent in Afghanistan than received, the central bank was also dependent on deliveries of US cash. According to Ahmadi, the central bank now has hardly any US dollars because deliveries were stopped when the Taliban marched on. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is suspending Afghanistan’s access to IMF resources. This affects, among other things, 440 million dollars (376 million euros) in new currency reserves. The US has a majority stake in the fund.
Tote bei Protesten in Asadabad
In the provincial town of Asadabad there were reportedly deaths yesterday after the Taliban fired at a rally to mark the national holiday. The country’s independence from Great Britain is celebrated on August 19th. Videos were also circulating on social media of a crowd of an estimated 100 people walking through a street in Kabul and holding up the red, black and green flag. The protesters shouted “Long live Afghanistan” and “Our flag, our pride”. The recordings and the time of the recordings could not be reliably checked.
Since the Taliban came to power, the national flag has developed into a protest sign against the Islamists, who have their own flag – white, with the Islamic creed.
Chaos inevitable
US President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC that the Taliban would have to decide whether they would be recognized by the international community. He does not believe that the group has given up its basic convictions.
The US president emphasized that the chaos during the withdrawal of US troops was inevitable – because of the collapse of the Afghan government, the military and the rapid takeover of power by the Taliban.
There was “no consensus” within the secret services regarding the prognoses. It was said that a takeover of power was more likely towards the end of the year, Biden countered media reports, according to which the government should have received warnings of a very rapid collapse.
The President assured that the US soldiers at the airport could, if necessary, stay beyond the planned departure date on August 31.
