The United States and Germany yesterday told their citizens in Afghanistan to avoid travelling to Kabul airport, citing security risks as thousands of desperate people gathered trying to flee almost a week after Taliban Islamists took control.
The Taliban’s co-founder, Mullah Baradar, arrived in the Afghan capital for talks with other leaders yesterday.
The group is trying to hammer out a new government after its forces swept across the country as US-led forces pulled out, with the Western-backed government and military collapsing.
Crowds have grown at the airport in the heat and dust of the day over the past week, hindering operations as the United States and other nations attempt to evacuate thousands of their diplomats and civilians as well as numerous Afghans.
Mothers, fathers and children have pushed up against concrete blast walls in the crush as they seek to get a flight out.
The Taliban have urged those without travel documents to go home.
At least 12 people have been killed in and around the single-runway airfield since Sunday, when the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, Nato and Taliban officials said.
“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising US citizens to avoid travelling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so,” a US Embassy advisory said.
The German Embassy also advised its citizens not to go to the airport, warning in an email that Taliban forces were conducting increasingly strict controls in its immediate vicinity.
The advisories underscored just how unsettled the security situation remains.
US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul, hoping to flee from the country.
