Afghans await news on their lives under the Taliban, as the US and its allies rush to leave Kabul

CNN

By Rob Picheta, Celine Alkhaldi, Nada Bashir and Nina Avramova, CNN

Thousands of desperate Afghans remain stranded under Taliban rule in Kabul on Tuesday, as the US and its allies — frantically evacuating their personnel from the city’s airport — reckon with the sudden breakdown of their two-decade effort in Afghanistan.

The situation at Hamid Karzai International Airport is “stabilizing,” the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday, a day after crowds of locals poured onto the tarmac and clung onto military planes, searching for a way out of the city.

Western nations continued the rush to get their citizens away from the site, with hundreds of evacuations planned for Tuesday. US President Joe Biden, who is facing intense scrutiny over his handling of the withdrawal of US forces, has ordered 6,000 more troops to the airport to assist American efforts there.

But many Afghans are having to wait for news of whether they will be offered a path out, as the country’s immediate neighbors — and nations further afield — brace for a possible humanitarian and refugee crisis.

Across Afghanistan, people are waiting to find out what kind of regime they will live under — and whether those who supported the US-backed government over the past 20 years will face retribution from the Taliban.

In a televised briefing on Tuesday, a member of the Taliban’s culture commission said the group would grant amnesty to government and public sector workers.

“They should be coming to their work and continuing their work,” Enamullah Sama Ghani said during the address. “We do not want them to go anywhere or to become migrants or to become deprived of their work.”

In an audio message distributed widely through Taliban channels, the group’s deputy leader Maulvi Mohammad Yaqub also told fighters not to “enter into homes of people or confiscate their cars.”

Female journalists threatened

But despite those public reassurances, the homes of two female journalists were visited by members of the Taliban on Sunday, a contact of the women told CNN, adding that both women were left severely shaken by the incidents.

According to the source, one of the female journalists whose home was visited by fighters said: “I am very worried about my safety and that of my family.”

Several female journalists are said to have received threatening calls from the Taliban, with the calls increasing over recent days, the source added.

One prominent female journalist in Kabul said she had received a threatening call from the Taliban, telling her they “will come soon.”

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, CNN spoke with Taliban fighters on Monday. One said female journalists would still be able to practice their profession as long as they adhered to a series of rules. Female journalists would be expected to wear the niqab, and should not engage with men outside of their family, he said.

Though tension is rife in the Afghan capital, particularly among women, some have continued to work publicly in the first days of Taliban rule. On Tuesday, Saad Mohseni, director of Moby Media Group, tweeted an image of his network’s “brave female journalists out and about in Kabul this morning.”

How the West reacted

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday urged the Taliban to keep their promises. “They have … pledged to be inclusive. They have said women can work and girls can go to school. Such promises will need to be honoured, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some scepticism,” Rupert Colville said in a statement.

Many of those seeking a way out of Afghanistan are awaiting news on when and how nations will grant asylum.

European Union foreign ministers are holding an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation in the country, and the EU has called on “all parties” to facilitate the “safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave the country.”

But Europe is on alert for a looming refugee emergency. In an address on Monday night, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the international community to increase aid to Afghanistan’s neighboring countries to prevent Afghan asylum seekers from traveling on toward Europe.

In many of the world’s capitals a blame game has already begun, with leaders questioning how a two-decade war — the longest the United States has ever fought — could unravel so quickly.

“No one saw this coming. Of course we would have taken action if we had,” UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News on Tuesday.

President Biden struck an unapologetic tone in an address on Monday in Washington D.C, admitting the speed of the Taliban’s resurgence took his administration by surprise but laying a large portion of blame at the feet of Afghan forces, Afghanistan’s former government, and his predecessor Donald Trump.

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CNN’s Sarah Dean, Vasco Cotovio, Claudia Otto and Hannah Ritchie contributed reporting.