WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland said Wednesday it halted its airlift evacuations from Kabul’s international airport over safety concerns, as Western nations prepare to end operations helping those fleeing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan ahead of America’s looming withdrawal.
The decision comes as U.S. President Joe Biden declared the day before that he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline for completing the risky airlift from Kabul.
The Taliban, who have wrested back control of the country nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, have insisted the airlift must end on Aug. 31. Any decision by Biden to stay longer could reignite a war between the group and the approximately 5,800 American troops and other coalition forces who are executing the airlift at Kabul airport.
Marcin Przydacz, a Polish deputy foreign minister, said that a group taken from Kabul and now in Uzbekistan was the last evacuated by Poland. Another plane is on its way to Warsaw. He said his nation made its decision after consulting with the U.S. and British officials.
“After a long analysis of reports on the security situation we cannot risk the lives of our diplomats and of our soldiers any longer,” Przydacz said.
A number of troops will remain briefly to carry out some procedures that include closing the base, Przydacz said.
Poland has used over a dozen planes to bring hundreds of evacuees to Warsaw. Some later traveled on to other countries.
The chaos at the airport has transfixed the world after the Taliban’s blitz across Afghanistan saw it seize control of a nation that received hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid and security support since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, and another seven died Sunday in a panicked stampede. An Afghan security force member was killed Monday in a gunfight under unclear circumstances.
Thousands have thronged the airport in the days since, with the Taliban firing into the air in an attempt to control the crowds.
European nations, including American allies Germany and the United Kingdom, had pressed for a longer window to continue evacuations past the deadline next week. CIA director William Burns even traveled to Kabul on Monday to meet the Taliban’s top political leader. However, Biden has stuck to the deadline, even after an emergency online summit of the Group of Seven nations.
Patricia Lewis, director of the international security program at the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, said the practical deadline for the evacuations to stop was “the next couple of days.”
“You can’t just say, ‘OK, midnight, we’ll stop now, we’ll just pack up gently,’” she said. “There’s a huge amount of stuff that has to be done, including getting all the people out who are doing the job and all the equipment, all of the stuff that they need to get out, that they don’t want the Taliban to get hold of.
“All of the allies are highly dependent on the U.S. for military cover, particularly air cover,” Lewis said. “They can’t put their own people at risk, so it really depends on when the U.S. starts packing up.”
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