Kabul airport chaos delays Germany’s evacuation plans

Kabul (dpa) – The German army faced delays in its mission to evacuate German citizens and others from the Afghan capital due to the chaotic scenes at Kabul’s airport, as Chancellor Angela Merkel and leading ministers expressed dismay at Afghanistan’s unfolding disaster.

According to dpa sources, the arrival of two A400M military transport planes was held up on Monday because they were unable to land.

After refuelling and waiting in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, one had apparently taken off with the hope of being in Kabul airspace when the airfield is clear for landings. But such a moment never occurred and, after circling above the Kabul airport, finally took off in the direction of the Uzbek capital Tashkent for refuelling.

Other military planes were either in Taskent or on the way, military sources told dpa. The goal was to have at least one plane always over Kabul in order to maximize every landing opportunity.

Tashkent is set to be the German hub for the evacuation. Flights from Kabul will first stop there, and passengers will then take civilian flights to Germany.

Dramatic scenes unfolded at the Kabul airport on Monday after the takeover of the country by the militant Islamist Taliban a day earlier.

Desperate people crowded the runways and tried to get on flights, videos and pictures on social media showed, including clinging to a US military aircraft as it tried to take off.

In Washington, the White House said that US troops were working to restore order and security at the airport so that evacuation flights can begin once again on Tuesday.

According to Merkel, some 10,000 people in total – including local staff, as well as others such as human rights activists and lawyers, and their families – have been identified as part of the evacuation operation.

Some staff from Berlin’s Kabul embassy arrived in Doha in the early hours of Monday on a US aircraft.

There were 40 workers at the German embassy on board the US plane, dpa sources said. Four members of Switzerland’s mission in Afghanistan were also on board.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas admitted on Monday that “the German government, the intelligence services, the international community – we misjudged the situation.”

Merkel called the situation in Afghanistan “bitter, dramatic and terrifying,” delivering her grim assessment a day after the Western-backed government in Kabul fell to the ultra-conservative insurgents.

“It is a terrible development for the millions of Afghans who want a more liberal society,” she said.

Merkel also reflected on the German security mission in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and ended after 20 years in June.

Beyond the fight against terrorism, everything was “not as successful and not as we have planned,” she said.

One of her possible successors after elections in September, Armin Laschet, called for the German “air bridge” out of Kabul to be kept open as long as possible.

“This air bridge must not only help local staff and German citizens who are still in Afghanistan, but must also apply to active women’s rights and human rights campaigners, activists, female mayors, and others,” he said in the same meeting, according to dpa sources.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer responded that although it was an “extremely dangerous” operation for the soldiers, “as long as it is still possible, the army will take as many people out of Afghanistan as possible and keep the air bridge open.”

Those people evacuated by German forces would be able to enter Germany and would then be eligible to receive visas, the Interior Ministry said.

The human rights organization Amnesty International called on the German government to step up its effort to help Afghans leave.

“The German government must go beyond what has been promised so far,” said Markus Beeko, Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany, on Monday.

In addition to local employees, journalists, women’s rights activists and human rights defenders “who are acutely exposed to particular danger must be protected and evacuated as unbureaucratically as possible.”