WASHINGTON: Americans trying to evacuate hundreds of Afghans and American citizens, including an Afghan who worked as a US military translator Taliban – Called for action from the Biden administration to evacuate people on board charter flights originating from Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately now we are left behind,” the former translator said quietly in the dark before dawn in Afghanistan on Wednesday. “No one heard our voice.”
person whose identity The Associated Press Stopped for his own safety, said he was running out of money to house his family in a hotel in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, after waiting a week to allow the Taliban to charter evacuation flights. To go out of the airport.
us Army The veterans who worked to help the man, an interpreter for the US military for 15 years, described the effort as more difficult than his months of deployment to Afghanistan. He tried and failed to get his old interpreter on the old airlift, ending with the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on 30 August.
“I hope we can help them, and get them out of this mess,” said one retiree. Army Colonel, Thomas McGrath, one of the veterans trying to help his former interpreter.
Hundreds of vulnerable Afghans await permission from Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to board charter flights parked at the airport in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The group includes dozens of US citizens and green card holders and their families, Afghans and their US advocates say.
“We think we are in some kind of prison,” said an Afghan woman who gathered at a large hotel in Mazar-i-Sharif.
He described the Americans and green-card holders in his group as elderly parents of Afghan-American citizens in the United States.
Taliban leader who took a new name cabinet On Tuesday, in the wake of last month’s power acquisition in most parts of the country, they will allow people with proper documents to leave the country. Taliban officials insist they are going through manifests and passenger documents for charter flights to Mazar-e-Sharif.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the US was working with the Taliban to resolve the standoff over charter flights.
He over the weekend dismissed claims by a Republican lawmaker, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, that the standoff at Mazar-i-Sharif was turning into a “hostage situation” for American citizens in the group.
“We have been assured that all US citizens and Afghan nationals with valid travel documents will be allowed to leave,” Blinken said in Doha, Qatar.
Later on Tuesday, 12 Democratic lawmakers pressed for evacuations, in a letter urging the administration to disclose its plans to evacuate the remaining hundreds of at-risk people in Afghanistan, not just US citizens.
“Our staff are working round the clock, responding to urgent pleas from constituents whose families and colleagues are seeking to flee Afghanistan, and are in need of immediate, timely, post-return guidance to help those in need. People can be best helped,” Reps. Gerald Nadler, Zoe Lofgren Gerald Connolly and nine other lawmakers from President Joe Biden’s party wrote.
In Doha, Blinken said the Taliban had told US officials that the problem at Mazar-i-Sharif was that travelers with valid travel documents were mixed in without the correct travel papers.
The Afghan woman contacted at the hotel – an employee of Ascend, a US-based non-profit that works with Afghan women and girls – also spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday for her own safety. He said people in his group had proper passports and visas, but the Taliban were preventing them from entering the airport.
Like the interpreter, she said that she has been waiting for eight days.
At one point last week, the women’s side of her hotel in the city sparked alarm when warnings came that the Taliban were looking for men to be evacuated, and that some had been taken.
“I’m afraid if they tear us apart and don’t let us go,” she said. “If we can’t get out of here, something will go wrong. And that scares me.”
The former US military interpreter, at the hotel with his family of eight children and wife, said he would expect to be beheaded by the Taliban given his work with the US military, and what rights groups say would be targeting Afghan civilians. There are previous Taliban attacks, which have worked with the US military.
“They’ll probably kill him,” agreed McGrath, expressing fear for the man’s children as well.
The retired colonel said the interpreter had always told his American teammates that he believed his work with them was in service to his own country. “He did a lot by standing in line with us,” McGraw said.
A range of Americans – many of them with some previous experience in Afghanistan, or other relations – have been working for weeks to help evacuate at-risk Afghans. Much of that effort is now focused on the aircraft of Mazar-i-Sharif.
“Unfortunately now we are left behind,” the former translator said quietly in the dark before dawn in Afghanistan on Wednesday. “No one heard our voice.”
person whose identity The Associated Press Stopped for his own safety, said he was running out of money to house his family in a hotel in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, after waiting a week to allow the Taliban to charter evacuation flights. To go out of the airport.
us Army The veterans who worked to help the man, an interpreter for the US military for 15 years, described the effort as more difficult than his months of deployment to Afghanistan. He tried and failed to get his old interpreter on the old airlift, ending with the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on 30 August.
“I hope we can help them, and get them out of this mess,” said one retiree. Army Colonel, Thomas McGrath, one of the veterans trying to help his former interpreter.
Hundreds of vulnerable Afghans await permission from Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to board charter flights parked at the airport in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The group includes dozens of US citizens and green card holders and their families, Afghans and their US advocates say.
“We think we are in some kind of prison,” said an Afghan woman who gathered at a large hotel in Mazar-i-Sharif.
He described the Americans and green-card holders in his group as elderly parents of Afghan-American citizens in the United States.
Taliban leader who took a new name cabinet On Tuesday, in the wake of last month’s power acquisition in most parts of the country, they will allow people with proper documents to leave the country. Taliban officials insist they are going through manifests and passenger documents for charter flights to Mazar-e-Sharif.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the US was working with the Taliban to resolve the standoff over charter flights.
He over the weekend dismissed claims by a Republican lawmaker, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, that the standoff at Mazar-i-Sharif was turning into a “hostage situation” for American citizens in the group.
“We have been assured that all US citizens and Afghan nationals with valid travel documents will be allowed to leave,” Blinken said in Doha, Qatar.
Later on Tuesday, 12 Democratic lawmakers pressed for evacuations, in a letter urging the administration to disclose its plans to evacuate the remaining hundreds of at-risk people in Afghanistan, not just US citizens.
“Our staff are working round the clock, responding to urgent pleas from constituents whose families and colleagues are seeking to flee Afghanistan, and are in need of immediate, timely, post-return guidance to help those in need. People can be best helped,” Reps. Gerald Nadler, Zoe Lofgren Gerald Connolly and nine other lawmakers from President Joe Biden’s party wrote.
In Doha, Blinken said the Taliban had told US officials that the problem at Mazar-i-Sharif was that travelers with valid travel documents were mixed in without the correct travel papers.
The Afghan woman contacted at the hotel – an employee of Ascend, a US-based non-profit that works with Afghan women and girls – also spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday for her own safety. He said people in his group had proper passports and visas, but the Taliban were preventing them from entering the airport.
Like the interpreter, she said that she has been waiting for eight days.
At one point last week, the women’s side of her hotel in the city sparked alarm when warnings came that the Taliban were looking for men to be evacuated, and that some had been taken.
“I’m afraid if they tear us apart and don’t let us go,” she said. “If we can’t get out of here, something will go wrong. And that scares me.”
The former US military interpreter, at the hotel with his family of eight children and wife, said he would expect to be beheaded by the Taliban given his work with the US military, and what rights groups say would be targeting Afghan civilians. There are previous Taliban attacks, which have worked with the US military.
“They’ll probably kill him,” agreed McGrath, expressing fear for the man’s children as well.
The retired colonel said the interpreter had always told his American teammates that he believed his work with them was in service to his own country. “He did a lot by standing in line with us,” McGraw said.
A range of Americans – many of them with some previous experience in Afghanistan, or other relations – have been working for weeks to help evacuate at-risk Afghans. Much of that effort is now focused on the aircraft of Mazar-i-Sharif.
.