https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9911163/Afghanistan-evacuation-not-going-save-want-UK-admits.htmlWe're NOT going to evacuate everyone from Afghanistan: Government admits rescue operation could last just 'a few more days' as planes take off EMPTY and Afghan who worked for US is shot in the head in more chaos at airport
* UK evacuated 963 people from Kabul yesterday and is planning for 1,000 more to leave the country today
* But armed forces minister has been forced to admit that people will get left behind when air bridge closes
* James Heappey said the airport is likely to remain open for just a few more days before troops are pulled out
* It was revealed that planes are still taking off from the airstrip near-empty as the wife of a British ex-Marine boarded a Norwegian plane last night on which she was virtually the only passenger
* Meanwhile Taliban guards at the airport are becoming increasingly violent to huge crowds of people waiting to leave, with one man holding US visas shot in the head yesterday
* Islamists also said to be going through the crowd looking for western collaborators, while elsewhere in the country NATO and US allies have been shot and tortured to death
By Chris Pleasance and Jack Wright and James Fielding For Mailonline
Published: 08:22, 20 August 2021 | Updated: 11:03, 20 August 2021
The UK will not be able to evacuate everyone it has promised sanctuary to from Afghanistan and the air bridge to Kabul airport may remain open for just a few more days, the armed forces minister has admitted today. Britain has promised to evacuate some 7,000 UK citizens and Afghan staff from the country, in addition to 5,000 refugees, but James Heappey said today that 'that sad truth is, we don't have it in our gift to stay there until absolutely everyone is out'.
'The air bridge could last two more days, five more days, ten more days,' he added, insisting that the armed forces are 'working hard to maximise capacity' on every flight while revealing 963 people were taken out of Kabul on British flights yesterday with 1,000 expected to be flown out today. British special forces are now being sent outside the walls of the airport compound in order to find passport and visa holders and get them past Taliban checkpoints so they can be put on planes home. But interpreters and Afghan women who served with the special forces say not enough is being done to help as time runs out for them to escape. Tokhi, 34, a former British interpreter, told The Times that he has been to the airport three times since UK forces emailed him early this week to say he had a seat on a flight out but has so-far failed to get past even the first of two Taliban checkpoints blocking the entrance he needs to reach. Meanwhile Shafiqa, who trained with British special forces near Kabul, said she and two female colleagues have filled out forms requesting space on UK flights but have yet to be called to the airport even as the Taliban tries to hunt them down. The 26-year-old said she has fled her home due to rumours that Islamist fighters have accessed lists of British collaborators and are now using them as hit-lists. She is now moving between houses in the city in the hopes she can dodge the jihadists long enough for space on an evacuation flight to free up. The US has evacuated some 7,000 people since Sunday, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday, bringing the total since July to 12,000 with a target of at least 22,000 though aid groups had said 80,000 would need to be flown out to keep Biden's promise to provide sanctuary to all those who helped US forces. NATO said a total of 18,000 people have been flown out of the country since Sunday which includes staff of smaller missions far short of promises by western countries to take more than 100,000 Afghan refugees between them and even as some 50,000 wait for salvation outside the airport gates. One image laid bare the extent of the empty promises showing what is thought to be a Norwegian mercy flight taking off from Kabul carrying the wife of a British ex-Marine who is still stranded in Afghanistan, but almost nobody else. Posting the image on Twitter last night, Paul 'Pen' Farthing wrote: 'Kaisa is on her way home! BUT this aircraft is empty scandalous as thousands wait outside Kabul airport being crushed as they cannot get in. Sadly people will be left behind when this mission is over as we CANNOT get it right.'
The UK government is thought to be drawing up contingency plans for a hasty 24-hour exit from the country, a medium-term withdrawal over a period of several days, and a more-orderly withdrawal over a longer period. Whitehall sources told The Times that the longer-term option is preferred as being safer for British troops, but were forced to admit 'we are in the American's hands' with little indication coming from Washington as to how long they are willing to hold out.
Mr Farthing is one of dozens of westerners and visa holders who say they cannot get to the airport due to the huge crowds gathered around it, who are being brutalised by Taliban guards on a daily basis after the Islamists took over security. Asila Wardak, human rights commissioner at The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said a male relative who was carrying travel documents got shot in the head outside the airport whilst begging the US to provide safe passage for all those it has promised sanctuary to so they can leave the country. Meanwhile the Taliban has begun hunting through crowds at the airport and going door-to-door elsewhere in the country, looking for those who collaborated with US or NATO forces torturing and executing those they find. General Haji Mullah Achakzai, police chief of Badghis Province near Herat, was gunned down in cold blood by Taliban fighters in disturbing footage posted online - while the relative of a German journalist was also shot to death by Islamist gunmen who were unable to find the reporter himself. Nine ethnic Hazara men were also killed, Amnesty said, with six shot and three tortured to death with one strangled to death using a scarf and one sliced to pieces with muscles stripped from his body.
In other developments:
* Joe Biden said he can't 'recall' if he was warned to maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan;
* The US President insisted 'no one is being killed' during the chaos at the Kabul airport;
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed an armed resistance to the Taliban, which includes SAS-trained forces, in Afghanistan is forming in the Panjshir Valley;
* Afghanistan's biggest female pop star has escaped on a US flight out of Kabul as fears grow for women in the country after the Taliban's vow to impose Sharia;
* Taliban militants are intensifying their hunt for people who worked with UK, US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, according to a confidential report to the UN;
* The British Foreign Office issued a slew of action shots of Dominic Raab hard at work as he faced fury for failing to make a crucial phone call about Afghanistan while he was on holiday;
* Women have led anti-Taliban protesters in Afghanistan today as they waved national flags in defiance of the Islamists to mark their country's independence day.
Taliban fighters have also been seen shooting over the heads of crowds at Kabul airport while striking people with rifles, as those on the ground reported beatings and whippings being dished out seemingly at random. Crowds have also gathered at the entrance to the military wing of the airport, which is guarded by US and British troops who have been firing into the air to disperse the crowds. Westerners face a race against time to get out of Kabul, with control of the airport resting on the up to 60,000 troops. Joe Biden has said they will stay until all US citizens are evacuated, but there are suspicions among British troops that they could leave abruptly - leaving the 600 British unable to keep operating to evacuate UK nationals and interpreters. UK defence secretary Ben Wallace told The Times that British nationals and visa holders are being allowed through a Taliban 'ring of steel' around the airport, but that he is aware that not everyone is able to get through crowds at the airport or make it to Kabul from elsewhere in the country. 'There are people emailing or telling us that they can't make it,' he admitted. 'We encourage them to see what they can do to help. It's very important that the Foreign Office reach out to those people.'
Meanwhile Mr Farthing told MailOnline that British troops had fired warning shots over the heads of a mother who was clutching a small baby at the airport. He said: 'There were a number of shots fired overhead and people started rushing around in panic. I don't know whether it was live rounds but even if it wasn't the fear factor is the same. It does nothing to resolve the matter and makes an already tense situation much worse.'
While US and UK troops have said that firing warning shots is a last resort, the Taliban are causing pandemonium and were filmed today shooting from the hip just yards away from women and children, and whacking people with the butts of their rifles. Such is the desperation among crowds at the airport that women have resorted to passing babies over barbed wire to soldiers in a vain attempt to get them out of the country. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's job was hanging by a thread last night as it emerged the crucial phone call that was delegated to a junior minister never took place. Tory MPs yesterday joined a ferocious backlash against Mr Raab over his failure to intervene while on holiday to help airlift translators out of Afghanistan. The Mail revealed yesterday that the Foreign Secretary had been advised by officials to interrupt his luxury trip to Crete on Friday to urgently contact his Afghan counterpart. Mr Raab, however, failed to make the call and it was 'delegated' to the duty Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith. It was thought the telephone conversation had then taken place the following day. But in an explosive development last night it emerged the call had never actually taken place. The Foreign Office admitted that as the Afghan regime collapsed, it had proved impossible to rearrange. The revelation will intensify the pressure on Mr Raab, who yesterday faced a clamour to consider his position and resign. Yesterday, he insisted he would not step down as he broke cover to hold a virtual meeting of G7 leaders. The Foreign Office released pictures of the Foreign Secretary at work and on the phone and said he was working to provide humanitarian assistance and support in Afghanistan. Afghans who risked their lives by working as translators alongside British soldiers accused the Foreign Secretary of a 'betrayal' and warned that his failure to get urgent assistance could cost lives. Angry Conservative MPs accused Mr Raab for being 'asleep at the wheel' and of lacking commitment to the job, with one Tory peer saying he should reflect on his future. Opposition parties meanwhile, said Mr Raab was guilty of a 'dereliction of duty' and called for him to be sacked. Afghan translator Rafi Hottak, who was injured while alongside soldiers in Helmand, was among those to tell of his fury last night, saying: 'It is a betrayal. The priority should have been British citizens and those Afghans who helped them. They are trapped in chaos now and in the days and hours before the Taliban arrived anything that could have been done should have been done.'
And one angry Tory MP said: 'Raab was asleep at the wheel. Backbench MPs are absolutely livid about his 'not my problem guv' attitude, as if it was not his responsibility. It has really riled up colleagues. The issue is not that he was on holiday, it is that he seemed to be unaware of what was happening.'
Last night, a leaked United Nations report warned the Taliban were now plotting murderous revenge against those Afghans who had worked with the West. The head of the group providing intelligence to the UN warned the Taliban were carrying out a highly-organised door-to-door hunt for people on their wanted list. Female demonstrators took to the streets of Kabul waving the black, red and green flag which has become a symbol of defiance to the country's jihadist rulers. They were joined by thousands across the country who celebrated the 1919 handover of power from the British by rejecting their new overlords. It comes just a day after three were shot dead for flying the flag during protests. The Taliban responded with beatings and gunfire while tearing down flags, despite their pledge to be a 'reformed' and 'moderate' version of the brutal outfit which controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s. Islamists fighters have also been celebrating independence day in their own fashion by flying their black and white flag and claiming victory over American forces. The chaos outside the airport appears to be growing by the day and is causing dangerous stampedes in which several people have already been killed this week, including a 14-year-old girl. Former British Marine, Mr Farthing, told MailOnline: 'Two expats one British and one Norwegian have already been forced to turn back this morning because they can't get through. And last night a UN convoy carrying various foreign nationals, who had been working in Afghanistan for NGOs, had to turn round because of the sheer volume of people on the street.'
An Afghan-Australian trying to leave the country also told ABC it is 'not possible' to get to the airport because there is 'lots of firing' and 'too many people' while Max Sangeen, a Canadian interpreter, said his wife and children including a 20-day-old baby are trapped in Kabul despite having the correct documents. But it is not clear what western troops can do to help. There are around 6,000 American and 900 British soldiers at the airport alongside smaller numbers of Turks and Australians but their jurisdiction only extends up to the perimeter wall. Beyond that, the Taliban is in charge. The huge US contingent keeping the airport secured piles pressure on Britain to get its citizens out quickly, with the smaller UK force unlikely to be able the hold the site if the Americans leave. Those on the ground say the Islamists have little or no idea what they are doing or who to let through, as the UN warned fighters are hunting through the crowd for those who collaborated with British or American forces so they can be 'punished' despite public reassurances that there will be no reprisal attacks. Mr Wallace said Taliban guards are allowing people with travel documents through checkpoints and British flights are not leaving the country empty insisting that 'not a single seat is wasted'. He revealed 120 people were evacuated this morning, with 138 due to follow later. There were eight RAF transport planes made up of A400 Atlas, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemasters scheduled to leave Kabul today. But with military transports able to carry up to 150, it means there will have been empty seats on the flights despite Mr Wallace's claims. The passengers were made up of British citizens, media and human rights staff and Afghans who had worked for the British. The Ministry of Defence confirmed there were six British flights out of Kabul on Wednesday despite Mr Wallace saying there were seven to 10 daily meaning a maximum of 900 passengers were on board and free from the Taliban. Meanwhile Joe Biden said when pressed Wednesday US troops were 'going to stay' in Afghanistan until they get American citizens out, even if it means running through an August 31 deadline order. The US President made the statement despite his own order soldiers will leave by the date, acknowledging the effort could run over if its citizens are still stuck in Afghanistan amid security and bureaucratic hurdles. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he expects 18 US flights to take off today, though it is not clear how many people will be able to board each plane. But Farthing slammed the comments as naive, saying: 'Nobody can actually reach [the processing centre] because of the crowds and the chaos surrounding it. It's a lottery whether you get picked to get through the security. At the moment people who have seats booked on flights out of the airport are being turned back while others who storm fencing or are picked completely at random are getting on planes. I'm livid at the Government's mishandling of this, they need to take a moment, get their heads together, and work out a way with the Americans to help fly out ex-pats and those who need safety like those who work for me because otherwise we are looking at the worst humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan for a generation.'
The TRUE face of the Taliban: Villagers tortured to death with muscles sliced off + Police chief machine-gunned + Journalist's family killed
Since retaking Afghanistan with alarming speed, the Taliban have gone on a charm offensive. Insisting they're a new organisation from the despotic jihadists of 20 years ago, who brutally oppressed women and allied themselves with Al Qaeda terrorists, this new 'Taliban 2.0', the world was assured, would now respect freedom, equality and basic humanity. But those lies have now been exposed, and Afghanistan's new rulers have proven beyond what little doubt there was that they are just as bloodthirsty and tyrannical as their equivalents from two decades ago. Human rights group Amnesty International revealed that Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of the country's Ghazni province last month, with eyewitnesses giving harrowing accounts of the killings. Six men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off during the atrocity, which took place between 4-6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district, the group revealed. Despite the organisation's claims it would not seek vengeance on those who fought their tyranny, one regional police chief who stood against them was executed in cold blood by the jihadist group, reports say. Shocking video footage being circulated on the internet shows the kneeling handcuffed and blindfolded figure of General Haji Mullah Achakzai, chief of Badghis Province near Herat, being gunned down in a hail of bullets. The grey-haired commander was reported to have been arrested by the Taliban after they seized the area, near the Turkmenistan border, in their lightning advance late last week. The disturbing clip was re-tweeted by former BBC Persia journalist Nasrin Nawa after it emerged on the feed of an apparent resistance group to the Taliban called @PanjshirProvince. Gen. Achakzai, in his early 60s, was an avowed enemy of the Taliban and known as a seasoned fighter in the long-running conflict between the group and the forces of the Afghan civil government, which fell at the weekend. According to reports, the governor and police chief of Laghman Province near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan have also been detained, with their fate to be decided by the Taliban high command. The brutal execution follows numerous reports of Taliban patrols going door-to-door in some areas and taking men of fighting age into detention. And while Taliban militants searched for a journalist for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, one of the reporter's family members was shot dead, according to local reports. Now the jihadis are intensifying their hunt for those who dared to work with UK, US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, a confidential report to the UN reveals. Jihadists are going door-to-door to threaten relatives of civil servants, interpreters and other consular staff, while other militants are even stopping people outside Kabul airport. Despite the Taliban's claims of an 'amnesty', terrifying video shows fighters spraying assault rifle bullets just yards away from women and children gathered at the airport's perimeter. The UN dossier leaked to The New York Times says the Taliban are 'arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban.'
It was filed to the UN by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a group which provides intelligence on global conflicts. The disturbing clip of the police chief's slaying was re-tweeted by former BBC Persia journalist Nasrin Nawa after it emerged on the feed of an apparent resistance group to the Taliban called @PanjshirProvince. After a content warning, Ms Nawa added: 'Haji Mullah, Police chief of Badghis province executed by #Taliban. This is their public amnesty!'
The Taliban had promised that there would be no acts of vengeance against former enemies following their takeover of Afghanistan on Saturday. Gen. Achakzai, in his early 60s, was an avowed enemy of the Taliban and known as a seasoned fighter in the long-running conflict between the group and the forces of the Afghan civil government, which fell at the weekend. According to reports, the governor and police chief of Laghman Province near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan have also been detained, with their fate to be decided by the Taliban high command. The brutal execution follows numerous reports of Taliban patrols going door-to-door in some areas and taking men of fighting age into detention. Senior Afghan officials told The Telegraph they have been forced into 'deep hiding' to avoid the marauding fighters who they suspect have gained access to government employee databases. Fawad Ahmadzai, another Canadian interpreter, said he and his family a wife and four children had been forced to 'fight' their way through guards to get to the airport terminal saying they ignored his Canadian travel documents, beat him, and shot at him. 'I was waving at them that I am a Canadian citizen,' he said. 'They didn't even care about which passport I carry, they would only push us and hit us, and shooting ahead of us, scaring us so that we would leave.'
German national Vanessa Faizi, who had become trapped in Kabul after going to Afghanistan to visit family, spoke of violence at the airport before she managed to get a flight out. 'We saw children being trampled on,' she told journalists at an airport back in Germany.
Mr Wallace urged Afghan women not to pass babies to soldiers, saying unaccompanied children will not be put on flights. He did not say where the children will end up instead. Elsewhere, Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw insisting chaos was inevitable while dismissing footage of people falling to their deaths from US planes as happening 'four or five days ago'.
Boris Johnson was also mauled over the British government's response to the crisis in a Commons debate, while foreign secretary Dominic Raab was facing calls to resign after it emerged he failed to make a crucial phone call about getting Afghan translators out of the country delegating to a junior minister. Labour MP Tom Tugendhat summed up the feeling of dismay when he said: 'This is what defeat looks like.'
Mr Wallace also warned of the long-term damage the retreat from Afghanistan will do to the perception of western power, saying the scenes playing out in Kabul will encourage enemies in Moscow. 'What I'm uncomfortable with is that we have a world order now, where resolve is perceived by our adversaries as weak, the West's resolve,' Wallace told BBC TV.
'That is something we should all worry about: if the West is seen not to have resolve and it fractures, then our adversaries like Russia find that encouraging,' Wallace told LBC radio. Britain fears the Taliban's return and the vacuum left by the West's chaotic withdrawal will allow militants from al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, just 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. As the airlift of Western citizens and Afghans who worked for foreign governments sought to ramp up, Biden said US forces will remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past the August 31 deadline for complete withdrawal.
In total, at least 8,000 people have been evacuated since Sunday, a Western security source in Kabul said. A day earlier armed Taliban members prevented people from getting into the airport compound. 'It's a complete disaster. The Taliban were firing into the air, pushing people, beating them with AK47s,' said one person who was trying to get through on Wednesday.
A Taliban official said commanders and soldiers had fired into the air to disperse crowds outside Kabul airport, but told Reuters: 'We have no intention to injure anyone.'
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said domestic air carriers and civilian pilots will be allowed to fly into Kabul to conduct evacuation or relief flights only with prior US Defense Department approval. Facing a barrage of criticism over the US withdrawal, Biden said chaos was inevitable. Asked in an interview with ABC News if the exit of US troops could have been handled better, Biden said 'No, the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens.'
A new government to replace that of President Ashraf Ghani, who is in exile in the United Arab Emirates, may take the form of a ruling council, with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge, a senior member of the group said. Afghanistan would not be a democracy. 'It is sharia law and that is it,' Waheedullah Hashimi, a senior Taliban official, told Reuters.
Ghani, who has been bitterly criticised by former ministers for leaving Afghanistan as Taliban forces swept into Kabul on Sunday, said he had followed the advice of government officials. He denied reports he took large sums of money with him. 'If I had stayed, I would be witnessing bloodshed in Kabul,' Ghani said in a video streamed on Facebook. Meanwhile the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan's Independence Day on Thursday by declaring it had beaten 'the arrogant of power of the world' in the United States, but challenges to their rule ranging from running the country's frozen government to potentially facing armed opposition began to emerge. From ATMs being out of cash to worries about food across this nation of 38 million people reliant on imports, the Taliban face all the challenges of the civilian government they dethroned without the level of international aid it enjoyed. The Taliban so far have offered no plans for the government they plan to lead, other than to say it will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. But the pressure continues to grow. 'A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,' warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan. Thursday marked Afghanistan's Independence Day, which commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule in the central Asian nation. 'Fortunately, today we are celebrating the anniversary of independence from Britain,' the Taliban said. 'We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant of power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan.'
