The Taliban have declared a “general amnesty” for government officials working in Afghanistan.
Two days after taking power following a lightning sweep through the country, it urged officials to return to work.
“A general amnesty has been declared for all… so you should start your routine life with full confidence,” said a statement from the Taliban.
The Taliban captured Kabul, and most other main cities, with little bloodshed.
But in the capital, panic gripped many residents who feared a repeat of the Taliban’s brutal rule from 1996 to 2001.
At the airport, thousands of Afghans scrambled to board the few flights available.
“We are afraid to live in this city,” a 25-year-old ex-soldier told AFP as he stood among huge crowds on the tarmac.
“Since I served in the army, the Taliban would definitely target me.”
Last night, US President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s military takeover.
In his first public appearance since the insurgents seized control of the country at the weekend, he admitted the Taliban advance had unfolded more quickly than expected.
Heaping criticism at the Western-backed government that was ousted with shockingly little resistance, he said US troops could not defend a nation whose leaders “gave up and fled”, as did President Ashraf Ghani.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future,” Biden said in his address at the White House.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
The United States has sent 6,000 troops to ensure the safe evacuation of embassy staff, as well as Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other support roles.
Other governments including France, Germany and Australia also organised charter flights.
Yesterday, dramatic footage posted on social media showed hundreds of men running alongside a US Air Force plane as it rolled down the runway, with some clinging to the side of it.
In other videos, civilians frantically clambered up an already overcrowded and buckling jetway.
One picture carried by US media showed a jam-packed US military transport plane purportedly with about 640 Afghans on board — some of whom climbed onto the half-open ramp at the last minute and were allowed aboard.
Taliban fighters have taken over checkpoints across Kabul, and militants with rifles slung over their shoulders walked through the streets of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district that houses most embassies and international organisations.
The Taliban sought to reassure the international community that Afghans should not fear them, with co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar saying the militants needed to show that they could “serve our nation and ensure security”.
But many Afghans struggled to take comfort from such assurances.
“It is a nightmare for educated women who envisioned a brighter future for themselves and generations to come,” Aisha Khurram, a former youth representative to the UN, told AFP.
An Irish woman living currently in Kabul says she is hoping she will be able to leave and return home in the coming days.
Aoife MacManus, from Meath, is one of the small number of Irish citizens who were still in Afghanistan after the Taliban took power.
MacManus told the PA news agency that there is a “sense of panic and fear all over the city.”
“This last 24 hours has been so crazy, I don’t know how many places I’ve been,” McManus said.
As her and her colleagues left their work compound on Sunday, “everybody was crying because of the expectations of what things are going to be like”.
“All the work we’ve put into education, that it might all be for nothing.”
She said she noticed that Taliban fighters were now manning police cars.
“It’s been one night, but it’s definitely changed.”
AFP
