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Afghanistan’s international airport has reportedly been overrun by desperate Afghans seeking to escape Taliban rule, leading to several deaths, after the Islamist militants took over Kabul.
Reports say no fewer than five Afghans have died, with two of them falling to their deaths after clinging to the wheels of planes that were taking off. Another two were reportedly killed by shots fired by US marines.
Images from the airport showed US marine helicopters being used to clear the runway to enable military planes filled with US and foreign nationals to take off.
Kabul’s airport, which had operated normally until today, is now closed to civilian flights.
The mayhem reflects the pervasive fear and panic among Afghans as they brace for life under the rule of the Islamist Taliban after it drove the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani from power over the weekend.
When the Taliban previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 it enforced a literalist interpretation of Islamic law, carrying out public executions, stoning women accused of adultery and cutting off the hands of accused thieves. It was subsequently driven from power by a US-led invasion following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The Taliban is now seeking to reassure Afghans that it has moderated its approach, and Mullah Baradar, a senior Taliban leader, publicly urged his fighters to show “humility” following their virtually bloodless seizure of the city on Sunday.
“We reached a victory that wasn’t expected,” he said in a video message from Qatar. “We should show humility in front of Allah. Now, it’s about how we serve and secure our people and ensure their future and good life to the best of our ability.”
Baradar added that the Taliban was negotiating with other Afghan political leaders over forming “an open, inclusive Islamic government”.
However, many Afghans — particularly educated women — remain intensely anxious. “The fear just sits inside your chest like a black bird. It opens its wings and you can’t breathe,” Muska Dastageer, a political-science professor at the American University of Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter.
Away from the airport, schools, government offices, colleges, banks, private offices and other businesses in Kabul were all shut. Only grocery stores and food stalls remained open.
“We are staying home for now, but it feels like a war situation,” said a Kabul-based university professor. “The Taliban has not yet clarified what they are going to do and what their policies will be towards women and schools. There is an overwhelming fear.”
Kobra Balooch, at the Afghanistan Civil Society Forum Organisation, said many Afghans were running short of cash because they “never expected Kabul to collapse that quickly. But Afghan people . . . have the experience of sudden chaos and usually hoard foodstuffs.”
A foreign government official and some Kabul residents said that Taliban fighters, some with lists of names, were going door to door to locate former government officials and journalists.
The Taliban’s capture of Kabul followed a sweeping offensive that saw the Islamist group overrun most of the country, facing little armed resistance, as many Afghan troops opted to surrender peacefully rather than fight for an unpopular leader.
Taliban fighters took control of the empty presidential palace and abandoned police posts in the capital without a struggle on Sunday after Ghani fled the country to an undisclosed location. The Taliban has also reportedly freed thousands of prison inmates, many of them hardcore Islamist fighters associated with various militant groups.
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