Afghanistan live news: US says Kabul airport has reopened as Taliban patrol city

The United States said Monday that it would only recognise a Taliban government in Afghanistan if it respects the rights of women and shuns extremist movements such as Al-Qaeda, AFP reports.

“Ultimately when it comes to our posture towards any future government in Afghanistan, it will depend upon the actions of that government. It will depend upon the actions of the Taliban,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters when asked about recognition.

“A future Afghan government that upholds the basic rights of its people, that doesn’t harbour terrorists and that protects the basic rights of its people including the basic fundamental rights of half of its population – its women and girls – that is a government that we would be able to work with.”

He said that the US negotiator on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, remained in the Taliban’s diplomatic base of Qatar where US officials have been in talks with the insurgents.

“I would say that some of those discussions have been constructive,” Price said.

“But again, when it comes to the Taliban, we are going to look for their actions rather than listen to their words,” he said.

An Afghan military plane crashed in Uzbekistan over the weekend, but Uzbek authorities on Monday issued conflicting reports on the cause, the Associated Press reports.

Uzbekistan’s defence ministry initially said it was studying videos and reports of the crash, then confirmed that the plane did crash, without elaborating.

Later Monday, Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported that it was told by the Uzbek defence ministry that Uzbekistan’s air defence system had downed the plane and “averted an attempt by an Afghan military plane to illegally cross Uzbekistan’s air border.” Two pilots, the agency said, were hospitalised in serious condition.

Within hours, the Prosecutor General’s office in Uzbekistan issued a statement saying that an Afghan military plane had collided with an Uzbek plane that was scrambled to escort it to the airport at Termez, a city in Surkhandarya.

The office later retracted that statement, which also alleged that 22 warplanes and 24 military helicopters from Afghanistan carrying 585 servicemen “illegally crossed” into Uzbek airspace over the weekend and were forced by Uzbek authorities to land at Termez.

The Prosecutor General’s office later apologised for a “hasty” statement on the messaging app Telegram and said it was not based “verified data from the relevant authorities.”

Full story here.

On Biden’s speech earlier and the apparent lack of planning for evacuations:

US President Joe Biden has said on Twitter, criticising the Afghan army – which the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour has described as “ nominally well-equipped, but dependent on Nato support, poorly led and riddled with corruption” – that, “American troops cannot — and should not — be fighting and dying in a war that Afghan forces are by and large not willing to fight and die in themselves.”

“It also raises the question of why the Biden administration ever thought it was safe to leave Afghan forces on their own after decades of dependence on the US for key skills, including air cover, logistics, maintenance, and training support for ANDSF ground vehicles and aircraft; security; base support; and transportation services,” Wintour writes of a report in to corruption within the Afghan army.

You can read more about this here:

Taliban fighters have taken over checkpoints across Kabul, and militants with rifles slung over their shoulders walked through the streets of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district that houses most embassies and international organisations, AFP reports.

The Taliban sought to reassure the international community that Afghans should not fear them, with co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar saying the militants needed to show that they could “serve our nation and ensure security”.

China was the first major nation to flag support for the Taliban, stating it was ready for “friendly relations”. Both Russia and Iran also made diplomatic overtures.

The State Department said any US ties with a Taliban government would depend on their respect of human rights and rejection of extremism.

Biden issued a stern warning to the insurgents, saying any threats to US interests would be met with a “devastating” military response.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Monday with Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi about the situation in Afghanistan, the US State Department said in a statement.

Blinken also held a call on Monday about Afghanistan with Indian Foreign Minister Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the department said.

Pakistan’s ambassador at the United Nations says US President Joe Biden’s endorsement of the previous American administrations’ decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan was “a logical conclusion to this conflict.”

Via AP:

Munir Akram told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Monday that the international community must now work together “to ensure an inclusive political settlement for a long-term peace, security and development of Afghanistan.” He said Pakistan’s stance “that the conflict in Afghanistan never had a military solution” has been confirmed.

The envoy said the best time to end the conflict through negotiations probably was when US and NATO troops were at a maximum military strength in Afghanistan. Akram added that “therefore, endorsement by the Biden administration of the previous US administrations’ decision of troop withdrawal was indeed a logical conclusion to this conflict.”

You may have seen the photo of the US military transport aircraft evacuating 640 Afghans during yesterday’s panic at Kabul airport.

The picture shows hundreds of people crowded in on floor of the cargo plane. The plane’s crew decided to take off despite not planning to carry such a large number of people.

The number of people onboard is believed to be the most ever flown in the C-17 military cargo plane, military news website Defense One reports.

The crew had not intended to take so many people, but “panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp, a video posted late Sunday showed,” and the crew decided to take off anyway. At the time they believed they were carrying 800 people.

You can listen to a recording of the audio reaction to the pilot estimating how many people were on board below:

Here is a summary of Biden’s comments earlier this evening in Washington.

The US president broke days of silence Monday on the chaotic American pullout from Afghanistan, doubling down on his decision as he fired scorching criticism at the country’s former Western-backed leadership for failing to resist the Taliban.

“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces,” he said in a televised address from the White House.

As images of desperation beamed in from Kabul, where American soldiers were trying to mount an evacuation from the airport while Taliban fighters flooded the city, Biden said: “The buck stops with me.”

Brushing off criticism that the evacuation is a debacle, Biden said the priority is to stop a war that had expanded far beyond its initially modest goals of punishing the Taliban for links to Al-Qaeda after 9/11.

“The mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building,” he said, vowing that despite the departure of US troops anti-terrorism operations would continue.

Biden said “thousands” of US citizens and Afghans who had worked with American forces are to be evacuated over the coming days. He threatened a “devastating” military response if the Taliban launch attacks in the meantime.

Underlining his insistence that he is on the right course, Biden was due to leave the White House soon after the speech to return to his weekend retreat at Camp David. He had just flown in from Camp David hours earlier to give the speech after coming under pressure to address the nation.

In case you missed this earlier: Afghan president Ashraf Ghani destroyed the opportunity for a two-week ceasefire when he fled Afghanistan, Bloomberg is reporting.

The agreement had been brokered by government and Taliban negotiators and depended on Ghani resigning from his position and the opening of talks on a transitional government.

According to the report, his departure, which he said was to prevent a bloodbath, surprised his own negotiators and aides, as well as the Americans.

Kabul’s airport reopened early Tuesday Afghanistan time after being closed for hours by US forces following a breakdown in security on the tarmac that interrupted evacuation operations, a US general said.

The airport reopened at 19.35 GMT Monday, said Major General Hank Taylor, a logistics specialist on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Taylor said the United States was “in charge of air traffic control” for military and commercial flights. He added that there were currently about 2,500 US troops in Kabul to help organise the evacuation Americans and Afghans who worked for them as translators and in other jobs.

By the end of Monday, US time, he said there could be 3,000 to 3,500 on the ground.

“Our focus right now is to maintain security at HKIA, to continue to expedite flight operations while safeguarding Americans and Afghan civilians,” he said.

The airport was shut down Monday after crowds of civilians surged onto the runways, the Pentagon said.

Seven people died in the desperate rush for flights out of the country. Two were killed when they fell from a US military plane that they had tried to cling to as it took off from Kabul. Others appear to have died in the crush on the tarmac.

US president Joe Biden has tweeted following his appearance earlier, during which he defended his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Biden reiterated this message, saying “I know my decision on Afghanistan will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this responsibility on to yet another president. It’s the right one for our people, for the brave servicemembers who risk their lives serving our nation, and for America.”

Hi, I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest from Afghanistan as Kabul airport is reopened after being closed by US forces following what a US general described as a breakdown in security on the tarmac.

The heartbreaking scenes at Kabul airport yesterday included people climbing up the outside of passenger stairs to aircraft and running alongside planes that were trying to take off.

Seven people died. Two were killed when they fell from a US military plane that they had tried to cling to as it took off from Kabul. Others appear to have died in the crush on the tarmac.

We’ll have more on this shortly and analysis of Joe Biden’s address defending his administration’s decision to withdraw.

If you see news we may have missed, get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:

• US President Joe Biden said the US achieved its goals in Afghanistan. Speaking on Afghanistan for the first time in a week, Biden said the US had succeeded in weakening al-Qaida and that its goal was not to help establish democracy in Afghanistan. He also blamed former president Ashraf Ghani for fleeing the country and criticised the collapse of the Afghan military.
• There are reports that Afghan president Ashraf Ghani destroyed the opportunity for a two-week ceasefire when he fled Afghanistan. The agreement had been brokered by government and Taliban negotiators and depended on Ghani resigning from his position and the opening of talks on a transitional government.According to the report, his departure, which he said was to prevent a bloodbath, surprised his own negotiators and aides, as well as the Americans.
• French president Emmanuel Macron said the EU will launch an initiative to thwart the arrivals of Afghan refugees. In a speech laden with comments about security and terrorism, Macron said they would be attempting to stop the expected increased arrivals and would take down smuggling rings.
• There were desperate scenes at Kabul airport as thousands attempt to flee following the Taliban takeover. Video footage appears to show Afghans falling to their deaths from a plane after takeoff. Other footage appears to show people clinging to moving US aircraft. Some aircraft did however manage to take off with hundreds aboard.
• Unconfirmed reports are of up to seven people killed at the airport amid the panic, according to witnesses.
• A US official confirmed to Reuters that American forces at the airport were “forced to fire into the air to prevent Afghans running on to tarmac to board military flights”. The official said that military flights from Kabul are “only meant to ferry diplomats, foreign staff, and local embassy staff”.
• British prime minister Boris Johnson will launch a scheme to resettle Afghans “most in need”, according to Downing Street. There have been repeated calls for western countries to evacuate Afghans who fear Taliban rule, especially those who worked with foreign governments and other sensitive areas, like journalism.
• UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has admitted “some people will not get back” as Britain tries to evacuate Afghan allies from Kabul, along with its own citizens, with British forces aiming to repatriate more than 1,000 people a day.
• Taliban spokesman: “The war is over in Afghanistan” The spokesman for the Taliban’s political office told Al-Jazeera Mubasher TV that the war is over in Afghanistan and that the type of rule and the form of regime will be clear soon.
• Senior Taliban official: “Too early to say how we will take over governance.” A Taliban leader said on Monday that it was too soon to say how the insurgent group will take over governance in Afghanistan, Reuters reports. “We want all foreign forces to leave before we start restructuring governance,” the leader told Reuters by phone. He did not want to be named. He also said that Taliban fighters in Kabul had been warned not to scare civilians and to allow them to resume normal activities.
• Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, will meet a Taliban representative on Tuesday to discuss security for the diplomatic mission. Russia will evacuate some of its embassy staff in Kabul “in order not to create too big a presence”, the Kremlin envoy to Afghanistan said on Monday. Zamir Kabulov told the Ekho Moskvy radio station that some of roughly 100 Russian embassy staff “will be placed on leave or evacuated in some other fashion just in order not to create too big a presence”.
• Ben Wallace appeared to hold back tears as he spoke about the effort to repatriate Britons and process visas for Afghan interpreters and other staff. About 4,000 British nationals and eligible Afghans are thought to be in the capital in need of rescue.
• Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood has compared scenes at Kabul airport to “Saigon 2.0”, referencing evacuations as the North Vietnamese army captured the southern capital and ended the Vietnam War.
• European Union foreign ministers will hold emergency talks on Tuesday to discuss the crisis. The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a tweet on Monday that he decided to convene the extraordinary video conference so the ministers can make “a first assessment” of developments.
• Families of British soldiers who died on previous tours of Afghanistan have criticised the British and US governments’ handling of the withdrawal as the Taliban start to seize control.