The first international commercial flight since the end of last month’s Western airlift from Afghanistan left Kabul airport yesterday with more than 100 passengers on board, officials said.
As well as offering hope to people still stranded in Afghanistan, the event marked an important step in the Taliban’s efforts to bring a degree of normality back to a country facing economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis.
“We managed to fly the first plane with passengers just an hour ago,” HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in Islamabad, thanking Taliban leaders for helping reopen the airport.
“This is actually what we are expecting from the Taliban, to see these positive statements translated into action,” said HE Sheikh Mohamed. “I think this is a positive message, that we are supporting.”
About 113 passengers were on board, including American, Canadian, Ukrainian, German and British citizens, a source with knowledge of the matter said, according to Reuters.
The flight, operated by Qatar Airways, later landed at Doha’s Hamad International Airport, Al Jazeera news channel reported.
The source said the passengers were taken to Kabul airport in a Qatari convoy after safe passage was agreed. In Doha, they will initially stay in a compound hosting Afghan and other evacuees.
Although international flights have flown in and out with officials, technicians and aid in recent days, this was the first such civilian flight since the hectic evacuation of 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans that followed the Taliban’s seizure of the capital on August 15.
Qatari special envoy Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani described yesterday’s flight as a regular one and not an evacuation. There would also be a flight on Friday, he said.
“Call it what you want, a charter or a commercial flight, everyone has tickets and boarding passes,” al-Qahtani said from the tarmac, quoted by Al Jazeera. “Hopefully, life is becoming normal in Afghanistan.”
Reuters could not immediately confirm if any Afghan nationals who did not have a passport from a second country were onboard.
An Afghan-American dual citizen, waiting to board the flight with his family, said the US State Department had called him in the morning and told him to go to the airport.
“We got in contact with the State Department, they gave me a call this morning and said to go to the airport,” the father, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
Qatar has acted as the central intermediary between the Taliban and the international community in recent years, and numerous countries, including the US, have relocated their embassies from Kabul to Doha in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover.
Doha has said it worked with Turkey to swiftly resume operations at Kabul’s airport to allow the flow of people and aid.
An airport official in Kabul said just over 100 people boarded the flight. A source with knowledge of the operation in Doha said 113 were on board. Sources had earlier said that as many as 200 people were aboard.
The White House spoke in positive terms about how the Taliban handled the charter flight that included Americans.
“They have shown flexibility, and they have been businesslike and professional in our dealings with them in this effort,” National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne added, stressing that efforts to facilitate such evacuations of Americans and Afghans who worked with the US mission would continue.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say at a press conference how many Americans were on the flight, saying the plane had only just landed and the US did not yet have all the details.
Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag tweeted to thank the Qatari government “for making this possible”, saying 13 of its nationals were on board the flight.
Passengers after arriving at Doha’s Hamad International Airport from Kabul yesterday.
US says Taliban ‘businesslike and professional’ in Afghan evacuation
AFP/Washington
The United States yesterday praised the Taliban as businesslike and co-operative in facilitating the first evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan since the US military withdrawal.
The departure from Kabul to Doha on a chartered Qatar Airways flight yesterday marked “a positive first step” with the new regime, National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said.
“The Taliban have been co-operative in facilitating the departure of American citizens and lawful permanent residents on charter flights from HKIA,” she said in a statement, referring to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“They have shown flexibility, and they have been businesslike and professional in our dealings with them in this effort.”
More than 30 US citizens or permanent residents were invited to board the flight but US officials are verifying how many ultimately boarded, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
“Of course, we would like to see more such flights,” Price said.
“We have heard public statements that more, in fact, may be forthcoming.”
The United States had previously said that a little more than 100 Americans were believed to remain in Afghanistan after President Joe Biden closed the 20-year military mission at the end of August.
Price said that most Americans remaining had connections in Afghanistan and had to make “wrenching” decisions on whether to leave - and did not need to decide now.
“This opportunity doesn’t expire if they turn it down one day, if they change their mind the next or even next year,” Price said.
Horne said the United States “facilitated” yesterday’s departure of Americans from Afghanistan and thanked Qatar for its role in the effort.
“We have been working intensely” to ensure the safe departure, and the flight is the result of “careful and hard diplomacy and engagement,” she said.
“We will continue these efforts to facilitate the safe and orderly travel of American citizens, lawful permanent residents, and Afghans who worked for us and wish to leave Afghanistan,” the statement noted. “We have brought more than 6,000 American citizens and lawful permanent residents home to the United States under Operation Allies Welcome thus far. As President Biden has said, if you are an American citizen who wants to leave Afghanistan, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.”
The flight comes two days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Qatar, the transit point for around half of the people airlifted from Afghanistan.
