First lot of foreigners out of Kabul, after US forces

Special Desk

Since the US forces left Afganistan on August 30, some 200 people, including Americans, could fly out of Kabul. This is the first such operation since US forces left.

The flight took passengers to Qatari capital Doha late on Thursday evening and a second such flight is slated on Friday sometime. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged help with evacuations.

Hundreds of Afghan citizens who had helped the US military were unable themselves to get out. Qatari special envoy Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani described Kabul international airport as operational and said it was a historic day for Afghanistan.

Dutch foreign minister Sigrid Kaag has tweeted her thanks to Qatar, saying that 13 Dutch nationals were on board the flight. The flights are the first to leave since the rushed US military-led evacuations finished last month, following the Taliban takeover of the country on 15 August.
More than 124,000 foreigners and Afghans fearful of Taliban retribution were flown out of the country. Around 100 US citizens were thought to be left in Afghanistan before the flight.

Among passengers were frightened families, some surfacing after weeks in hiding. Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities had allowed 115 Americans in number, US permanent residents and holders of other Western passports to leave the country on a flight to Qatar on Thursday, the first such departure by air since US forces withdrew last month.

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The planned departure was the first international passenger flight to take off from Kabul airport since the US military and its allies exited Afghanistan. The outbound international flight, a Qatar Airways Boeing 777, marked the resumption of international passenger flights from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Qatari officials have clarified that the outbound flight is not an evacuation flight but rather a ticketed service facilitated by the middle east nation. According to news reports the Taliban reportedly agreed to allow the departures after being pressed to do so by the US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad who is in charge of peace talks with the group.