TALIBAN CLOSE IN ON KABUL AS US SCRAMBLES TO EVACUATE

 AFP 14 August 2021

© - Insurgent fighters are now camped just 50 kilometres away from the Afghan capital

The Afghan Taliban tightened their territorial stranglehold around Kabul on Saturday, as refugees from the insurgents' relentless offensive flooded the capital and US Marines returned to oversee emergency evacuations.

With the country's second- and third-largest cities having fallen into Taliban hands, Kabul has effectively become the besieged, last stand for government forces who have offered little or no resistance elsewhere.

Insurgent fighters are now camped just 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, leaving the United States and other countries scrambling to airlift their nationals out of Kabul ahead of a feared all-out assault.

US embassy staff were ordered to begin shredding and burning sensitive material, as units from a planned re-deployment of 3,000 American troops started arriving to secure the airport and oversee the evacuations.

A host of European countries -- including Britain, Germany, Denmark and Spain -- all announced the withdrawal of personnel from their respective embassies on Friday.

© ASSOCIATED PRESS Internally displaced Afghans from northern provinces, who fled their home due to fighting between the Taliban and Afghan security personnel, take refuge in a public park Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. The Taliban have completed their sweep of the country's south on Friday, as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

For Kabul residents and the tens of thousands who have sought refuge there in recent weeks, the overwhelming mood was one of confusion and fear of what lies ahead.

"We don't know what is going on," one resident, Khairddin Logari, told AFP.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply disturbed" by accounts of poor treatment of women in areas seized by the Taliban, who imposed an ultra-austere brand of Islam on Afghanistan during their 1996-2001 rule.

"It is particularly horrifying and heart breaking to see reports of the hard-won rights of Afghan girls and women being ripped away," Guterres said.

The scale and speed of the Taliban advance has shocked Afghans and the US-led alliance that poured billions into the country after toppling the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks nearly 20 years ago.

Days before a final US withdrawal ordered by President Joe Biden, individual soldiers, units and even whole divisions have surrendered -- handing the insurgents even more vehicles and military hardware to fuel their lightning advance.

© ASSOCIATED PRESS Internally displaced school teacher wearing a burqa from Takhar province, who identified y her first name, Nilofar, left, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press inside her tent in a public park in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. In a lightning advance over the past several days, the Taliban now control more than two-thirds of the country, just two weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops, and are slowly closing in on the capital, Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

'No imminent threat' 

Despite the frantic evacuation efforts, the Biden administration continues to insist that a complete Taliban takeover is not inevitable.

"Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday, while acknowledging that Taliban fighters were "trying to isolate" the city.

The Taliban offensive has accelerated in recent days, with the capture of Herat in the north and, just hours later, the seizure of Kandahar -- the group's spiritual heartland in the south.

Kandahar resident Abdul Nafi told AFP the city was calm after government forces abandoned it for the sanctuary of military facilities outside, where they were negotiating terms of surrender.

"I came out this morning, I saw Taliban white flags in most squares of the city," he said. "I thought it might be the first day of Eid."

© ASSOCIATED PRESS Pakistani soldiers stand guard while stranded people walk towards the Afghan side at a border crossing point, in Chaman, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. Pakistan opened its Chaman border crossing for people who had been stranded in recent weeks. Juma Khan, the Pakistan border town's deputy commissioner, said the crossing was reopened following talks with the Taliban. (AP Photo/Jafar Khan)

Pro-Taliban social media accounts have boasted of the vast spoils of war captured by the insurgents -- posting photos of armoured vehicles, heavy weapons, and even a drone seized by their fighters at abandoned military bases.

In Herat, the Taliban captured long-time strongman Ismail Khan, who helped lead the defence of the provincial capital along with his militia fighters.

Pul-e-Alam, capital of Loghar province, was the latest city to fall on Friday, putting the Taliban within striking distance of Kabul.

Helicopters flitted back and forth between Kabul's airport and the sprawling US diplomatic compound in the heavily fortified Green Zone -- 46 years after choppers evacuated Americans from Saigon, signalling the end of the Vietnam War.

Taliban fighters are pictured in a vehicle of Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) on a street in Kandahar on August 13, 2021. (Photo by - / AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

The US-led evacuation is focused on thousands of people, including embassy employees, and Afghans and their families who fear retribution for working as interpreters or in other support roles for the United States.

Pentagon spokesman Kirby said that most of the troops shepherding the evacuation would be in place by Sunday and "will be able to move thousands per day" out of Afghanistan.

"Capacity is not going to be a problem," he said.