'Nobody can get to Kabul airport': Increasingly frantic Western expats say they can't reach their evacuation flights because huge crowd of terrified Afghans is blocking their access - including desperate mothers who are giving their BABIES to soldiers
- Westerners and Afghan visa holders are facing fresh hell at Kabul airport today as they try to flee Afghanistan
- Ex-pats say they cannot reach checkpoints to get into the airfield because 'terrified locals' are blocking them
- Britons, Norwegians, Australians, and Canadians all said their way out of the country was blocked by crowds of Afghan refugees and Taliban guards who dished out beatings and whippings seemingly at random
- Paul Farthing, a British ex-Marine, said getting a flight is a 'lottery' and rubbished claims that the Taliban are letting people through checkpoints - saying he cannot even get to the checkpoint
- Flights are leaving the airport today, UK and US officials insisted, with more than 2,000 people due to fly out Kabul airport is a 'clusterf***' with westerners and visa holders unable to get 'in or anywhere near it' today despite evacuation flights continuing to take off, MailOnline has been told.
Paul 'Pen' Farthing, a former Marine who now lives in Kabul with his wife, said a 'huge crowd of terrified locals' without travel documents are blocking western citizens and Afghans with papers from escaping the country.
'Two ex-pats - one British and one Norwegian - have already been forced to turn back this morning because they can't get through,' he said.
'And last night a UN convoy carrying various foreign nationals, who had been working in Afghanistan for NGOs, had to turn round because of the sheer volume of people on the street.'
Such is the desperation among crowds at the airport that women have resorted to passing babies over barbed wire to soldiers in a desperate attempt to get them out of the country.
An Afghan-Australian trying to leave the country also told the ABC that it is 'not possible' to get to the airport today, adding that there is 'lots of firing' and 'too many people'.
And Canadian interpreter Max Sangeen said that while he managed to board a flight out of the country, his wife and children - including a 20-day-old baby - were left behind. 'These guys have done all the paperwork, everything is done,' he told CTV.
But it is not clear what, if anything, western troops can do to help those outside the airport after checkpoints were taken over by the Taliban whose fighters are now providing most of the security.
There are around 6,000 American and 900 British soldiers at the airport - alongside smaller numbers of Turks and Australians - but their jurisdiction only extends up to the perimeter wall. Beyond that, the Islamists are in charge.
And those on the ground say the Taliban guards have little or no idea what they are doing or who to let through, while dishing out beatings, lashings, and firing gunshots seemingly at random.
The UN has warned that fighters are also hunting through the crowd for those who collaborated with British or American forces so they can be 'punished' - threatening to kill or torture their families if they continue to hide, despite the Taliban's public insistence that it has granted amnesty for all.
UK defence secretary Ben Wallace insisting this morning that Taliban guards are allowing people with travel documents through checkpoints and that British flights are not leaving the country empty.
Mr Wallace said 120 people have been evacuated from the country today with another 138 due to follow later. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he expects 18 US flights to take off today, though it is not clear how many people will be able to board.
Babies were thrown over barbed wire towards troops at Kabul airport in a desperate bid to get them out of the country as the west's ignominious exit from Afghanistan continued
A young girl is passed to US soldiers guarding Hamid Karzai airport amid a desperate scramble to get out of the country by tens of thousands of Afghans who don't want to be ruled by the Taliban
A British soldier carries an Afghan girl away from crowds at the gate, as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today urged people not to pass their children to troops because they will not get a seat on flights out
Satellite images have revealed the extent of the crisis at Kabul airport, with cars crammed up against the southern civilian entrance and northern military entrance that can be seen from satellitesBut Mr Farthing slammed the comments as naive, saying: 'Nobody can actually reach [the processing centre] because of the crowds and the chaos surrounding it.
'It's a lottery whether you get picked to get through the security. At the moment people who have seats booked on flights out of the airport are being turned back while others who storm fencing or are picked completely at random are getting on planes.
'I'm livid at the Government's mishandling of this, they need to take a moment, get their heads together, and work out a way with the Americans to help fly out ex-pats and those who need safety- like those who work for me - because otherwise we are looking at the worst humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan for a generation.'
Fawad Ahmadzai, another Canadian interpreter, said he and his family - a wife and four children - had been forced to 'fight' their way through guards to get to the airport terminal - saying they ignored his Canadian travel documents, beat him, and shot at him.
'I was waving at them that I am a Canadian citizen,' he said. 'They didn't even care about which passport I carry, they would only push us and hit us, and shooting ahead of us, scaring us so that we would leave.'
Meanwhile German national Vanessa Faizi, who had become trapped in Kabul after going to Afghanistan to visit family, spoke of violence at the airport before she managed to get a flight out.
'We saw children being trampled on,' she told journalists at an airport back in Germany.
Mr Wallace urged Afghan women not to pass babies to soldiers, saying unaccompanied children will not be put on flights. He did not say where the children will end up instead.
Elsewhere, Joe Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw - insisting that chaos was inevitable while dismissing footage of people falling to their deaths from US planes as happening 'four or five days ago'.
Boris Johnson was also mauled over the British government's response to the crisis in a Commons debate, while foreign secretary Dominic Raab was facing calls to resign after it emerged he failed to make a crucial phone call about getting Afghan translators out of the country - delegating to a junior minister.
Labour MP Tom Tugendhat summed up the feeling of dismay when he said: 'This is what defeat looks like.'
Mr Wallace also warned of the long-term damage the retreat from Afghanistan will do to the perception of western power, saying the scenes playing out in Kabul will encourage enemies in Moscow.
'What I'm uncomfortable with is that we have a world order now, where resolve is perceived by our adversaries as weak, the West's resolve,' Wallace told BBC TV.
'That is something we should all worry about: if the West is seen not to have resolve and it fractures, then our adversaries like Russia find that encouraging,' Wallace told LBC radio.
Britain fears the Taliban's return and the vacuum left by the West's chaotic withdrawal will allow militants from al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, just 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States
As the airlift of Western citizens and Afghans who worked for foreign governments sought to ramp up, President Biden said US forces will remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past the August 31 deadline for complete withdrawal.
In total, at least 8,000 people have been evacuated since Sunday, a Western security source in Kabul said.
A day earlier armed Taliban members prevented people from getting into the airport compound.
'It's a complete disaster. The Taliban were firing into the air, pushing people, beating them with AK47s,' said one person who was trying to get through on Wednesday.
A Taliban official said commanders and soldiers had fired into the air to disperse crowds outside Kabul airport, but told Reuters: 'We have no intention to injure anyone.'
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said domestic air carriers and civilian pilots will be allowed to fly into Kabul to conduct evacuation or relief flights only with prior U.S. Defense Department approval.
Facing a barrage of criticism over the U.S. withdrawal, Biden said chaos was inevitable. Asked in an interview with ABC News if the exit of U.S. troops could have been handled better, Biden said: 'No. ... The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens.'
A new government to replace that of President Ashraf Ghani, who is in exile in the United Arab Emirates, may take the form of a ruling council, with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge, a senior member of the group said.
Western nations have been accused of leaving people behind as evacuation flights take off from Kabul half-empty. Pictured are Afghan women and children disembarking a Spanish flight that had 50 people on board, despite having room for over 100
Afghan women disembark from a Spanish Airbus A-400M plane that had 'just over 50 people' on board despite having capacity for 150, at Torrejon de Ardoz air base near Madrid
Spain's Ministers of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares (centre left) and Inclusion, Social Security and Migration Jose Luis Escriva (centre right) escort Afghan evacuees off the first flight to arrive from Afghanistan to Spain
Afghan men, women and children disembark from the first evacuation flight to land in Spain as the west pulls out of Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting
An Airbus A-400M military transport plane with 'just over 50' evacuees from Afghanistan lands in Spain overnight
Taliban fighters have now encircled the airport in Kabul and are deciding who gets to come in and who has to stay out. Checkpoints have been set up on both the civilian south side of the airport and the military north side, with gunshots fired in both locations to keep crowds backAfghanistan would not be a democracy. 'It is sharia law and that is it,' Waheedullah Hashimi, a senior Taliban official, told Reuters.
Ghani, who has been bitterly criticised by former ministers for leaving Afghanistan as Taliban forces swept into Kabul on Sunday, said he had followed the advice of government officials. He denied reports he took large sums of money with him.
'If I had stayed, I would be witnessing bloodshed in Kabul,' Ghani said in a video streamed on Facebook.
Meanwhile the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan's Independence Day on Thursday by declaring it had beaten 'the arrogant of power of the world' in the United States, but challenges to their rule ranging from running the country's frozen government to potentially facing armed opposition began to emerge.
From ATMs being out of cash to worries about food across this nation of 38 million people reliant on imports, the Taliban face all the challenges of the civilian government they dethroned without the level of international aid it enjoyed.
Meanwhile, opposition figures fleeing to Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley now talk of launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.
The Taliban so far have offered no plans for the government they plan to lead, other than to say it will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. But the pressure continues to grow.
'A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,' warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan.
Thursday marked Afghanistan's Independence Day, which commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule in the central Asian nation.
'Fortunately, today we are celebrating the anniversary of independence from Britain,' the Taliban said. 'We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant of power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan.'
Unacknowledged by the insurgents, however, was their violent suppression of a protest Wednesday in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which saw demonstrations lower the Taliban's flag and replace it with Afghanistan's tricolor. At least one person was killed.
While urging people to return to work, most government officials remain hiding in their homes or attempting to flee the Taliban.
A C-17 military jet lands at Amsterdam's Schipol airport carrying the first batch of evacuees from Afghanistan
An Air France flight lands at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris as the first batch of French evacuees touch down
Afghan women and children walk down an air bridge at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after being evacuated
Questions remain over Afghanistan's $9 billion foreign reserves, the vast majority now apparently frozen in the U.S. The country's Central Bank head warns the country's supply of physical U.S. dollars is 'close to zero,' which will see inflation raise the prices of needed food while depreciating its currency, the afghani.
Meanwhile, a drought has seen over 40% of the country's crop lost, McGroarty said. Many fled the Taliban advance and now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.
'This is really Afghanistan's hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,' she said.
Two of Afghanistan's key border crossings with Pakistan, Torkham near Jalalabad and Chaman near Spin Boldak, are now open for cross-border trade. Hundreds of trucks have passed through, Pakistan's interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said.
However, traders still fear insecurity on the roads, confusion over customs duties and pressures to price their goods even higher given the economic conditions.
There has been no armed opposition to the Taliban. But videos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of the Northern Alliance militias that allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, appear to show potential opposition figures gathering there. That area is in the only province that has not fallen to the Taliban.
Those figures include members of the deposed government - Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who asserted on Twitter that he is the country's rightful president, and Defense Minister Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi - as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.
In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, Massoud asked for weapons and aid to fight the Taliban.
'I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father's footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban,' he wrote.
'The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.'
American troops stand guard at Hamid Karzai airport in Afghanistan as evacuations from the country continue
A US Marine escorts Department of State personnel to be processed for evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport
The US has so-far evacuated some 2,000 people from Afghanistan and is hoping to evacuate 20,000 more in an operation that could last for weeks
Joe Biden snaps over photos of Afghans falling from planes in Kabul and suggests there's no way America could have gotten out 'without chaos ensuing'
President Joe Biden angrily defended his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying on Wednesday that chaos was unavoidable - comments which were immediately seized on as shameful by his critics.
Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Biden defended the US withdrawal, which saw the Afghan government crumble and fall to the Taliban just 11 days later.
On Wednesday the US military evacuated approximately 1,800 individuals on ten C-17s. Since August 14, nearly 6,000 people have been taken out of Kabul. Biden told ABC News said he wants to rescue 15,000 Americans, and up to 65,000 Afghan refugees who helped the US military operation.
'The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing — I don't know how that happens,' he said.
His remarks were met with disbelief.
Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's ambassador to the UN, said it was 'shameful'.
'This is such a slap in the face to the thousands of Americans still in Afghanistan,' she tweeted.
'He had no plan, he has no urgency, and he won't take responsibility. #Shameful'
President Biden defended his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan during an interview on Wednesday, saying it was difficult to see how chaos could have been avoided
Two people are seen falling from a U.S. Air Force plane on Monday, having tried to jump on board as it was taxiing away from Kabul airport
Liz Cheney, senator for Wyoming, who has long argued against withdrawing troops, echoed her remarks, saying: 'A truly ignorant and shameful performance by an American president.'
Tom Cotton, Republican senator for Arkansas, tweeted: 'No way to avoid this chaos? That's a bald-faced lie. Joe Biden is as dishonest as he is impotent.'
Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former senior counselor, shared a Fox News article titled: 'Biden panned for 'shameful' comments on Afghan withdrawal during ABC interview: 'It's really bad'.'
Iowa congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks said that the White House's lack of planning was 'unacceptable'.
'This statement downplaying his administrations lack of planning, speaks volumes to their lack of commitment to the safety of our American troops and Afghan allies,' she said.
'Unacceptable.'
John McCormack, a fellow at the National Review Institute, agreed, saying: 'Biden waited more than 72 hours since Kabul fell to commit to bringing home every American citizen stuck in Afghanistan. In the interim, top admin officials hedged. Still not clear what the plan is to accomplish this goal.'
Commentator Jack Posobiec tweeted: 'Biden just told ABC that the Afghanistan withdrawal couldn't have been handled better There are thousands of American citizens trapped behind enemy lines as he speaks.'
Biden answered questions about his Afghan withdrawal for the first time in more than a week during an interview with George Stephanopoulos for ABC News
The world watched in horror as desperate Afghans ran alongside departing U.S. Air Force planes. Some tried to cling to the undercarriage as they sought to escape the Taliban
Some of the lucky ones managed to rush aboard a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft. The crew decided to fly them to Qatar and safety despite having some 640 people aboard
Donald Trump Jr criticized Biden's press conference on Wednesday, during which he spoke about COVID, and refused to take questions.
'10,000 Americans or more are stranded in Afghanistan, trapped by a terrorist organization, and our president is too much of a coward to take a single question from the media. #CowardInChief,' he said.
At another point in the interview, Biden snapped when asked about horrific images of Afghans falling from planes.
'That was four days ago, five days ago,' he said, even though the images of people falling to their deaths emerged on Monday.
Ric Grenell, who served as Trump's ambassador to Germany, said: Why did @GStephanopoulos let him lie about this?
'@Abc has some explaining to do. This was an exclusive and that means they have a responsibility.'
The Massachusetts Republican Party account tweeted: 'If #Biden actually had a plan, Afghans wouldn't have been falling out of the sky over #Kabul.
'Disgraceful!'
On social media, images of chaos at Kabul airport were widely shared.
'Unreal. Shame on the @JoeBiden administration for this mess,' tweeted pro life activist Lila Rose.
Sharing the clip of desperate Afghans running alongside a U.S. Air Force plane, trying to climb aboard, David Patrikarakos tweeted: 'This footage will still be played in 100 years. It now joins images of the retreat from Saigon and the naked Vietnamese girl as one of the west's most shameful moments in modern history.'
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