De veiligheid bij de evacuatie van Afghanistan neemt af. Duitse troepen waarschuwden maandag dat de veiligheid op Kabul Airport achteruit gaat.

Dat bericht liep via het Duitse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken:

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned the press Monday that the situation outside the airport in Kabul has grown even more chaotic on Monday after a member of the Afghan national forces who was working as a guard outside the airport was killed, while several others were wounded.
Meanwhile, after the Taliban assured there would be no extension of the airlift deadline, UK PM Boris Johnson has nevertheless called for a virtual meeting of G-7 leaders on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, and the possibility of an extension. The US managed to evacuate more than 10K people over the past 24 hours, the administration confirmed Monday.
Meanwhile, on the ground in Kabul, some militants wanted by Islamabad have been freed from jail in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s interior minister said. The militants are from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group that has previously carried out attacks in Pakistan.  The Taliban are also asking Iran to step up exports of fuel.

Ook vanuit Nederland wordt er gepiept. Dezelfde boodschap, met een ietwat andere insteek:

Maas said the government in Berlin is holding talks with the US and Turkey to plan for extending civilian operations at Kabul airport after the departure of US troops to enable further evacuations. This includes current negotiations with the Taliban. Maas also said the early-Monday firefight showed how dangerous the situation is.

“The situation at the airport has only grown more chaotic over the last few hours,” Maas told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “The situation remains dangerous.”

Outside Afghanistan, Kamala Harris is doing her best not to talk about the situation during her trip to Singapore.

Alles gaat via de modernste communicatiemiddelen:

Another guard was killed Monday outside the International Airport in Kabul when a firefight broke out, leaving one member of the Afghan National Army dead, and three others wounded. Some members of the now-dissolved Afghan military are helping to guard the airport.

News of the killing was revealed by the Germany military, which announced it via twitter early Monday morning in the US. No German soldiers were harmed in the skirmish, fortunately. It doesn’t appear that any other NATO forces were harmed either. The firefight was instigated by unidentified gunmen.

Rusland is intussen eveneens alert op wat er bij haar buren gaande is:

Over the weekend Putin announced Russia has shut its borders to Afghans now pouring out of the country amid the US exit and ongoing evacuation debacle, further castigating US and European leaders for placing refugees in neighboring central Asian countries – but which according to Putin is a potential threat to Russia as “We don’t want militants showing up here under cover of refugees.”

Het was ook een te mooie gelegenheid om niet weer aan het kiften te slaan, natuurlijk.

It now appears Russia will take its security concerns a big step further, in what will be seen as a defiant thumb in the eye to Washington. Russia’s RIA news agency is reporting that the Kremlin stands “ready to deliver weapons and equipment to central Asian allies that border Afghanistan.” Further RIA cited top officials who said these large deliveries would be done “at special low prices”.

Russians aren’t really gloating about what’s happened to the American/NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Moscow actually would have preferred if Washington, and its allies, had stayed. But now its priority is making sure Islamic radicals don’t spill into former Soviet Central Asia. https://t.co/ezMSOeIiZS

— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) August 15, 2021

Rusland heeft er in ieder geval geen trek in:

“Who are these refugees? How can we tell? There may be thousands, or even millions,” Putin posed. “The border is a thousand kilometers – they will get on everything, a car, even a donkey, and flee across the steppe.”

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Meer over de ontwikkelingen in Afghanistan door de jaren heen vindt u hier. Meer over terrorisme vindt u hier.