As the Taliban draw closer, the lines and the panic only grow.
Passengers walk to the departures terminal of Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. As a Taliban offensive encircles the Afghan capital, there's increasingly only one way out for those fleeing the war, and only one way in for U.S. troops sent to protect American diplomats still on the ground: the airport.
Kabul International Airport — formally known as Hamid Karzai International Airport, after the country's first president following the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 — sits just northeast of the city. Its single runway is long enough to accommodate military aircraft; the airfield as a whole can accommodate over 100 planes on the ground.
That sedate crowd has been replaced with panicked travelers scrambling to leave Kabul. Afghan airlines Ariana and Kam Air have every seat booked for at least the next week, airport workers said. Those with a plane ticket in hand also have to get a coronavirus test at a clinic amid the pandemic in order to leave.
"This is a specific, narrowly focused, tailored mission to help with the safe, secure movement of the reduction of civilian personnel in Kabul, as well as to help support the acceleration of the special immigrant visa process by the State Department,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday. Those visas are for Afghans who once worked for the U.S. government and feel threatened by the Taliban.
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