Scores of Westerners, including Americans, fly out of Kabul

By KATHY GANNON

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Some 200 foreigners, including Americans, flew retired of Afghanistan connected an planetary commercialized formation from Kabul airdrome connected Thursday, the archetypal specified large-scale departure since U.S and overseas forces concluded their frantic withdrawal astatine the extremity of past month.

The Qatar Airways formation to Doha marked a important breakthrough successful the bumpy coordination betwixt the U.S. and Afghanistan’s caller Taliban rulers. A dayslong stand-off implicit charter planes astatine different airdrome had near dozens of passengers stranded and formed uncertainty connected Taliban assurances to let foreigners and Afghans with due question documents to permission the country.

A elder U.S. official, who spoke connected information of anonymity due to the fact that helium wasn’t authorized to little the media, provided the fig of Westerners connected committee and said that 2 precise elder Taliban officials had helped facilitate the departure. Americans, greenish paper holders and different nationalities including Germans, Hungarians and Canadians were connected the flight, the authoritative said.

As Taliban authorities patrolled the tarmac, passengers presented their documents for checking, and sniffer dogs inspected luggage laid retired connected the ground. Some of the seasoned airdrome workers had returned to their jobs aft fleeing during the harrowing chaos of the U.S.-led airlift.

Irfan Popalzai, 12, among those boarding the formation with his parent and 5 brothers and sisters, said his household lives successful Maryland.

“I americium an Afghan, but you cognize I americium from America and I americium truthful excited (to leave),” helium said.

As the radical prepared to committee earlier, Qatari officials gathered connected the tarmac of Kabul airdrome to denote the airdrome was acceptable for the resumption of planetary commercialized flights aft days of repairs. Extensive harm to the question hub successful the frenzied last days of the U.S. airlift that evacuated implicit 100,000 radical from the state had raised questions implicit however soon the transport hub could resume for regular commercialized flights. Technical experts from Qatar and Turkey person been racing to reconstruct operations.

“I tin intelligibly accidental that this is simply a historical time successful the past of Afghanistan arsenic Kabul airdrome is present operational,” said Qatari peculiar envoy Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani.

“Call it what you want, a charter oregon a commercialized flight, everyone has tickets and boarding passes,” al-Qahtani added, noting that different commercialized formation would instrumentality disconnected connected Friday. “Hopefully, beingness is becoming mean successful Afghanistan.”

The formation represents the archetypal to depart from Kabul airdrome since American forces near the state astatine the extremity of August, their departure accompanied by a frantic airlift of tens of thousands of overseas citizens and Afghans fleeing the Taliban. The scenes of chaos, including Afghans plunging to their deaths aft clinging to subject craft that was taking disconnected and a termination bombing that killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. work members, came to specify the fraught extremity to America’s two-decade war.

A overseas diplomat, likewise speaking connected information of anonymity due to the fact that helium wasn’t authorized to little the media, said different 200 foreigners, including Americans, would depart successful the adjacent mates of days.

It remains uncertain what the resumption of planetary flights implicit the adjacent fewer days volition mean for the tens of thousands of Afghans hopeless to fly Afghanistan’s caller Taliban leaders implicit fears of what their regularisation volition hold.

Hundreds of different Afghans astatine hazard aft the Taliban takeover due to the fact that of their past enactment with Americans person gathered for much than a week successful the bluish metropolis of Mazar-e-Sharif, waiting for support to committee privately chartered evacuation flights retired of the country.

Although the Taliban assured the satellite they would fto passengers with valid question documents permission the country, galore of those stranded astatine the bluish airdrome did not person specified papers.