Biden under pressure over NGO says it bans flights from Afghanistan | Afghanistan

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The Joe Biden administration is facing mounting pressure amid reports that several hundred people, including Americans, have been banned for a week from travel from an airport in northern Afghanistan.

Marina Legery, founder and executive director of a small US NGO active in Afghanistan, said 600 to 1,300 people, including girls from her group, had been waiting near Mazar-i-Sharif airport for a week amid confusion including the Taliban and US officials.

Understandably, that number includes 19 Americans, although none of them are with the LeGree group. She added that those waiting are being accommodated in different places in the city.

Marina Legery, founder and executive director of a small US NGO active in Afghanistan, said between 600 and 1,300 people had been waiting near Mazar-i-Sharif airport for a week. Photography: climbing sport

“It’s been seven days and nothing has moved,” Legeri told AFP, adding that six chartered planes were waiting at the airport to evacuate what some officials call a “group of NGOs.” “The Taliban simply don’t let anything move.”

Her Virginia-based organization, which trains Afghan girls to drive through physical activities such as mountain climbing, is trying to evacuate a small group of girls and young women, ages 16 to 23, and a few family members. All are Hazaras, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan that faced severe repression when the Taliban last seized control of the country from 1996 to 2001.

Legery, who has worked in Afghanistan since 2005 for US aid groups and agencies, expressed frustration with the State Department’s role in evacuating flights. The group’s departure seemed imminent until a few days ago, when planning abruptly came to a halt.

A State Department spokesman said on Monday that while the United States is committed to helping Americans and Afghans at risk leave, its resources in Afghanistan are very limited.

“We have no personnel on the ground, we have no air assets in the country, and we do not control the airspace – whether over Afghanistan or anywhere else in the region,” the spokesman told AFP.

“Due to these restrictions, we also do not have a reliable way to confirm the essential details of charter flights, including who may organize them, the number of US citizens and other priority groups on board, the accuracy of the rest of the statement, and where they plan to land.”

“We will hold the Taliban to their pledge to allow people to leave Afghanistan freely.”

Satellite images of the airport from September 3 show six planes, one on a runway and one outside the terminals.

The position has been taken over by Republican opposition to Biden, which comes at a time when his popularity has fallen sharply amid concerns about the evacuation of Afghanistan and the summer spike in Covid-19 cases.

Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, indicated on Sunday that the Taliban was holding the movement as part of high-pressure negotiations with Washington.

But Legere said she would not describe the situation that way. “No one is guarding the door,” she said, even if her anxiety grew as the days went by. “If it is not resolved soon, we are concerned for the physical safety of our girls,” she said.

“The Taliban are not holding these planes hostage. The problem is the United States government. All the State Department has to do is make a phone call and those planes will be able to,” said Eric Montalvo, a former US Marine Corps officer and attorney who works with groups that chartered two of the six planes. people to leave immediately.”

The United States completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 31 after weeks of chaos, following the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

More than 120,000 people have been flown out of Afghanistan in one of the largest air operations in history, although US officials have admitted leaving behind a few hundred Americans along with many vulnerable Afghans.

The Biden administration has repeatedly vowed to do everything in its power to help those who want to leave.

On Monday, the State Department announced that four US citizens had managed to leave Afghanistan by land and arrived in an unnamed neighboring country without any resistance from the Taliban. This was the first officially recognized US departure flight since August 31.

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