Following the example of the United States, the German army is now also going to evacuate civilians who cannot reach the airport. The Bundeswehr has brought two helicopters to Afghanistan for this. The plan is to pick up small groups of people in Kabul and transfer them to the airport.
The helicopters are escorted by the US Air Force, which deploys Chinook helicopters to evacuate people. “This is a real air operation and not a ‘taxi service’,” an army official said yesterday.
Taliban leader arrives in Kabul
Meanwhile, one of the founders and senior officials of the Taliban has arrived in Kabul. It concerns Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is in talks with other Taliban leaders about forming a new government. According to a spokesman for the radical Islamic terrorist organization, it will become clear in the coming weeks what the new government will look like.
Baradar is expected to play an important role in the negotiations between the Taliban and the former Afghan government. The Taliban say they want an “inclusive, Islamic” government and claim to be more moderate than they were in the 1990s, when the Taliban ran a reign of terror in Afghanistan. Those claims are followed with suspicion by many.
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