Air base holding evacuees stuffed to capability as extra Afghans attempt to escape the Taliban
The chaos at Kabul’s airport is conflicting with President Joe Biden’s reassuring phrases in a speech Friday. A Protection Division official mentioned U.S. troops evacuated round 5,700 individuals a day earlier, together with round 250 People, from Kabul.
Evacuees who had been fortunate sufficient to get out of Afghanistan had been flown to Ramstein Air Drive Base in Germany on Friday. These Afghan evacuees can keep at Ramstein for a number of weeks, based on U.S. army officers.
Different evacuees had been flown 1,200 miles to Doha, Qatar on the Persian Gulf. However with so many evacuees flying to Doha over the previous few days, area at Doha is beginning to grow to be restricted. U.S. officers say there’s merely no extra room right here to course of them. Al Udeid Air Base hit capability on Friday, forcing the U.S. to droop flights for hours at Kabul airport till it might discover different international locations, like Germany, to comply with transit evacuees by their territories to security.
1000’s of People and Afghans have tried to get previous Taliban fighters and a crushing crowd, fearing they will be left behind with out the safety of U.S. troops. Some Afghans making an attempt to get on a flight inform CBS Information many individuals who aren’t essentially in imminent hazard have turned up on the airport they usually’re getting in the way in which of others who must get out.
The packed airports and rescue missions are only a signal of how many individuals in Afghanistan are nonetheless ready and hoping that U.S. troops will fly them out. Simply past the airport partitions, the Pentagon says it dispatched three helicopters to rescue almost 170 Americans from a resort. CBS Information’ Roxana Saberi and her crew stayed on the resort however left two days earlier than the helicopter rescues started.
One man advised CBS Information that he’s making an attempt to flee as a result of he labored for the U.S. authorities however he has but to get a visa. “I have not obtained that. Most individuals have not obtained that,” he mentioned.
Afghans like him concern the Taliban’s tightening grip over the capital. One Taliban chief, Khalil Haqqan, is on the U.S. terrorist record. He spoke at Friday’s prayers — a stark reminder of who’s now in cost.
