The first in a few weeks has departed in cooperation between Qatar and the Taliban…..
The Kabul airport is being staffed and brought operational by Qatar since the Taliban dod not have the technical ability to do so….
The manifest for the Qatar Airways flight granted permission for 211 passengers to leave from Kabul, according to diplomats in Kabul who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. It was not immediately clear how many passengers made it to the airport to board the flight, but footage showed a group of men, women and children boarding the plane….
There should be more evacuations from others places in Afghanistan other than Kabul as other Middle East air carriers move to fill the vacuum in air travel in and out of the country…
Aid flights into the country have begun and are essential for the Taliban economy…..
With flights at the airport in Kabul resuming, one senior American official said on Thursday it was expected that most U.S. citizens who wanted to leave Afghanistan would now be able to depart because their travel documents and other security clearances could be verified by Qatari officials who were operating the flights out.
The vetting of passengers has been one of the main concerns keeping flights from departing from the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, said the official, who discussed the arrangements on condition of anonymity.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban had agreed to allow American citizens to leave, but planes were held up over concerns about whether other passengers had valid travel documents.
The U.S. official said that Americans elsewhere in Afghanistan could now be brought to the Kabul airport in protected convoys but declined to give details for security reasons.
The Taliban and the Americans have been sparring for days over who bore responsibility for the delay in getting flights in and out of the country. The Taliban said that the Americans had left the Kabul airport in a state of disrepair, including by disabling the radar there.
The Americans have said that it was the failure of the Taliban to provide security and a reliable vetting system that slowed things down.
The American official, who was familiar with the negotiations, said that the Taliban had allowed Qatar to operate the Kabul airport after being pressed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the American envoy to stalled peace talks, and after Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had met with Qatar’s leaders this week in Doha.
The Taliban on Thursday thanked the Qataris for their efforts to reopen the airport….
An explanation on why evacuations are held up….
Who screens the passengers before they get on the plane?
U.S. State Department officials acknowledged Tuesday that they have been unable so far to get six chartered aircraft carrying about 1,000 evacuees out of Mazar-i-Sharif, but it was not clear whether the holdup was due to U.S. bureaucracy or Taliban action.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken denied that the Taliban were forbidding the aircraft to take off or the passengers to disembark.
“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage-like situation at Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken said during a visit to Qatar.
After Kabul fell, some non-governmental organizations that could not get their people through the gates at Hamid Karzai International Airport quickly re-routed evacuees to the airport at Mazar-i-Sharif, about 265 miles away. But the aircraft chartered to take them have been stranded there for days.
A senior administration official who spoke to Pentagon reporters Tuesday said some of the challenge may lie in the inability to screen passengers, which affects where the aircraft would be allowed to land.
“When it comes to charter aircraft like those apparently on the ground in Mazar, the U.S. government simply does not have the personnel on the ground we once would have had to identify and take care of potential aviation security concerns,” the official said….
More…
The State Department plans to resume regular evacuation flights from Afghanistan before the end of the year to help U.S. citizens, residents and some visa applicants leave the country, a senior State Department official said, an effort that will require coordination with the Taliban and other governments.
In addition, Kabul’s international airport remains closed to regular passenger aviation, and it remains unclear who will manage air-traffic control and ground operations.
The small number of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghans left behind after the chaotic evacuation effort in the final weeks of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan could be eligible for seats on the U.S.-sponsored flights….
More…
Update…
Nearly 200 Americans Still Want to Leave Afghanistan
“The State Department informed congressional staff Thursday that it is in touch with 363 US citizens in Afghanistan, 176 of whom want to leave,” CNN reports.