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Flight with civilians onboard leaves Kabul, first since chaotic evacuation By Reuters


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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Taliban forces stand guard on the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport a day after U.S troops withdrawal in Kabul, Afghanistan August 31, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer/File Picture

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(Reuters) -The primary worldwide business flight for the reason that finish of the chaotic Western airlift from Afghanistan final month took off from Kabul airport on Thursday with greater than 100 passengers on board, officers mentioned.

“We managed to fly the primary airplane with passengers simply an hour in the past,” Qatari International Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani mentioned in Islamabad, thanking Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders for serving to reopen the airport.

About 113 passengers have been on board, together with U.S., Canadian, Ukrainian, German, and British residents, a supply with information of the matter mentioned.

They may land in Doha and head to a compound presently internet hosting Afghan and different evacuees. They have been transported to the airport in a Qatari convoy after Qatar labored with events on the bottom to safe secure passage, the supply mentioned.

Though worldwide flights have gone out and in with officers, technicians and help in latest days, this was the primary such civilian flight for the reason that evacuation which adopted the Taliban’s seizure of the capital on Aug. 15 as overseas army forces pulled out.

It marked an vital step within the Islamist militant group’s efforts to convey some type of normality again to the nation, which is dealing with financial collapse and a humanitarian disaster.

The Qatar Airways airplane had arrived in Kabul earlier on Thursday carrying help, it mentioned Al Jazeera tv reported.

A U.S. official had mentioned 200 foreigners in Afghanistan, People amongst them, have been set to depart on constitution flights from Kabul on Thursday after the Taliban agreed to their evacuation.

Qatari and Turkish technical groups helped restore operations on the airport, from the place 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans have been evacuated by U.S.-led forces within the fraught days after the Taliban takeover.

Qatari particular envoy Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani described Thursday’s flight out as an everyday one and never an evacuation. There would even be a flight on Friday, he mentioned.

“Name it what you need, a constitution or a business flight, everybody has tickets and boarding passes,” al-Qahtani mentioned from the tarmac, quoted by Al Jazeera. “Hopefully, life is changing into regular in Afghanistan.”

In Washington, White Home spokeswoman Jen Psaki mentioned that as of Wednesday about 100 U.S. residents have been nonetheless in Afghanistan however that not all essentially wished to depart now. Some could have household within the nation or different causes for not departing but, she mentioned.

The flight got here two days after the Taliban introduced an interim authorities made up of primarily ethnic Pashtun males, together with Islamist hardliners and a few wished by the US on terrorism fees.

ALL MEN

International international locations greeted the formation of the brand new authorities with warning and dismay, seeing it as a sign the Taliban wouldn’t attempt to broaden their base and present a extra tolerant face as they’d advised they’d do.

The entire ministers are males, and practically all Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates within the Taliban’s southern Afghan heartland however accounts for below half the nation’s inhabitants.

The final time the Taliban dominated Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, girls and ladies have been banned from work and training. The group carried out public executions and its non secular police enforced a radical interpretation of Islamic legislation.

That Taliban authorities was ousted by a U.S.-led intervention following the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on the US masterminded by al Qaeda leaders based mostly in Afghanistan, and 20 years of warfare adopted.

The Taliban took energy once more with a swift offensive as U.S. troops withdrew below a deal between Washington and the Taliban.

The brand new Taliban leaders have pledged to respect rights according to Islamic legislation, however have but to supply particulars. Afghans who received extra freedoms prior to now twenty years worry dropping them.

A newspaper editor mentioned two of his journalists have been overwhelmed in police custody this week after masking a protest by girls in Kabul the place they have been detained by the Taliban.

Zaki Daryabi, founder and editor-in-chief of the Etilaat Roz newspaper, shared pictures on social media of two male reporters, one with massive, purple welts throughout his decrease again and legs and the opposite with related marks on his shoulder and arm.

Each males’s faces have been additionally bruised and reduce within the photos, which have been verified by Reuters.

PAKISTANI ROLE

A Taliban minister mentioned any assault on journalists can be investigated. However protests have been being curtailed as a result of there was a safety risk from Islamic State fighters, he mentioned.

Many critics known as on the management to respect primary human rights and revive the financial system, which faces collapse amid steep inflation and meals shortages.

The Taliban authorities wished to interact with regional and Western governments and work with worldwide help organisations, the Taliban minister mentioned.

However White Home spokeswoman Psaki mentioned nobody within the Biden administration “would recommend that the Taliban are revered and valued members of the worldwide group”.

Analysts mentioned the make-up of the cupboard https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-choices-new-cabinet-could-hamper-recognition-by-west-2021-09-08 may hamper recognition by the West. The inside minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is needed by the US on terrorism fees and carries a reward of $10 million, whereas his uncle, with a bounty of $5 million, is the minister for refugees and repatriation.

U.S. Central Intelligence Company director William Burns mentioned Afghanistan in talks in Pakistan with military chief Common Qamar Javed Bajwa and army intelligence head Lieutenant Common Faiz Hameed, Pakistan’s army mentioned.

Afghanistan’s ousted U.S.-backed authorities accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban. Whereas formally denying that, Pakistan has lengthy seen the Taliban as its best choice for curbing the affect of previous rival India in Afghanistan.

In Islamabad, Pakistani International Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi mentioned the fast problem was to keep away from a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan.

“To save lots of lives and the folks of Afghanistan, there needs to be no strings connected,” he mentioned.





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