Afghans yesterday faced an increasingly desperate race to escape life under the Taliban after President Joe Biden confirmed US-led evacuations will end next week.

More than 80,000 people have been evacuated since August 14, but huge crowds remain outside Kabul airport hoping to flee the threat of reprisals and repression in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

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Biden said Tuesday the United States would stick to his August 31 deadline to completely withdraw its troops despite warnings from European allies that not all vulnerable Afghans would be able to leave by then.

“The sooner we can finish, the better… each day of operations brings added risk to our troops,” he said.

Biden also turned down pleas from other G7 leaders for extending the deadline. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the G7 had agreed on a roadmap for “future engagement with the Taliban, but are currently insisting on ‘safe passage’ beyond the August 31 deadline”.

Washington and its allies have been flying out thousands of Afghans every day on hulking military transports, but it has become an increasingly difficult and desperate task.

Many Afghans fear a repeat of the brutal five-year Taliban regime that was toppled in 2001, and violent retribution for working with foreign militaries, Western missions and the previous US-backed government.

There are particular concerns for women, who were largely banned from education and employment and could only leave the house with a male chaperone during the group’s rule in the 1990s.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said the international community must maintain dialogue with the Taliban if it is to protect any progress made over the past 20 years.

“Our goal must be to preserve as much as possible what we have achieved,” she said.

The Afghan capital’s airport has been gripped by chaos as US-led troops try to maintain a secure perimeter for evacuation flights, surrounded by desperate Afghans.

Some have foreign passports, visas, or eligibility to travel, but most do not. At least eight people have died in the chaos.

“Does anyone … ANYONE … have a contact inside the airport,” pleaded one American on a WhatsApp group set up to share information on how people can access the airport. “My guy worked for us 2010-15 and needs to get out with 5 of his family. This is real bad.”

The Taliban have also been accused of blocking or slowing access for many trying to reach the airport, although they denied the charge again late Tuesday.

‘IT WILL NOT BE ENOUGH’

A Nato country diplomat in Kabul, who declined to be identified, said several international aid groups were desperate to get Afghan staff out and neighbouring countries should open their land borders to allow more people to leave.

“Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan should be pulling out far more people using either air or land routes. It’s vital air and land routes are used at a very fast pace,” the diplomat told Reuters.

European nations have said they would not be able to airlift all at-risk Afghans before August 31.

“Even if (the evacuation) goes on… a few days longer, it will not be enough,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Bild TV.

A hard withdrawal deadline presents a further complication that may reduce the number of daily evacuations.

The United States deployed fresh troops for evacuations. That 6,000-plus contingent, as well as hundreds of US officials, 600 Afghan troops and the equipment, will have to be flown out, reports AFP.

KEY MINISTERIAL POSTS 

Taliban have appointed senior veterans to the posts of finance minister and defence minister, two members of the group said, as it switches focus from a stunning military conquest to how to run a country in crisis.

The movement’s unexpectedly swift victory has left it struggling to govern, and alongside established Taliban names at the top, it has turned to several lower-level administrators to keep Kabul running.

The Taliban have not formally announced the appointments, which a commander said were provisional, but Afghanistan’s Pajhwok news agency said on Tuesday that Gul Agha had been named as finance minister and Sadr Ibrahim acting interior minister.

Former Guantanamo detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir was named acting defence minister, Al Jazeera news channel reported, citing a Taliban source.

The leader of a resistance movement to the Taliban, meanwhile, has vowed to never surrender but is open to negotiations with the new rulers of Afghanistan, according to an interview published by Paris Match yesterday.

Ahmad Massoud, the son of legendary Afghan rebel commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, has retreated to his native Panjshir valley north of Kabul along with former vice-president Amrullah Saleh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed their countries will step up efforts to counter “threats” emerging from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover, the Kremlin said yesterday.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS LOOMS

Ten million children in Afghanistan are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, Unicef Afghanistan warns as the UN’s World Food Programme seeks $200m in food aid.

Children in Afghanistan already survive on humanitarian assistance and approximately a million are expected to suffer from life-threatening malnutrition this year, according to Unicef.

David Beasley, executive director of WFP said 14 million people – one-third of the Afghan population – face food insecurity “because of several years of drought, conflict, economic deterioration, compounded by Covid”.

The Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule was marked by harsh sharia law, with many political rights and basic freedoms curtailed and women severely oppressed.

Afghanistan was also a hub for anti-Western militants, and Washington, London and others fear it might become so again.