Footage has emerged showing Afghan civilians clinging to the undercarriage of transport aircraft leaving Kabul with a number appearing to fall from a C-17 while in flight.
We will not be posting the footage.
The incident happened after thousands of Afghans gathered at the Kabul airport to seek evacuation amid the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
A video has surfaced showing civilians hanging on to the undercarriage of a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft as the plane heads to the runway at Kabul airport. pic.twitter.com/mh9sD4vjMY
— George Allison (@geoallison) August 16, 2021
Apache helicopters were used to control crowds.
https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1427233656012165125
“Locals near Kabul airport claim that three young men who were holding themselves tightly on to the tires of an airplane fell on top of people’s houses. One of the locals confirmed this and said that the fall of these people made a loud and terrifying noise,” tweeted Asvaka News Agency.
It is understood that three people were killed on Monday following gunfire at the passenger terminal of Kabul’s international airport.
Last night, we reported that an American C-17 evacuated 800 people in single flight.
Additionally, the first flight of evacuated personnel landed at RAF Brize Norton in the UK from Kabul late last night. The flight consisted of British Embassy staff and British citizens, say the Ministry of Defence.
As part of Operation PITTING, the UK Armed Forces are enabling the evacuation of British personnel from Afghanistan.
“On Sunday 16th August the first flight of evacuated personnel arrived at RAF Brize Norton in the UK. The flight constituted of British Embassy staff and British Nationals.
British forces from 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived in the Afghan capital over the weekend on Op PITTING to support the evacuation of British Nationals and former British staff eligible for relocation under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).”
I do not really understand why the Afghan forces were so incapable of stopping or even slowing the Taliban after all the time, money, equipment and training we have provided over the decades? Perhaps we should have trained the women to fight, they probably have done a better job!
The speed and complete lack of any resistance tells me that something else is at play. No way the army completely fell apart this quickly, without deals being made. You can easily understand parts of the army failing bit the whole thing in under a weekend, doesn’t seem realistic.
The Afghan air force was dependent on the US contractors who were withdrawn this year, and without an airforce to support and evacuate them any choice to resist the Taliban by isolated commanders would likely cost them their lives. For them the writing has been written on the wall for months, while I think most hoped US support would return they certainly would have made their plans for if it did not.
You have hit the nail on the head.
ANA was feeling isolated and unsupported once Bagram effectively closed and then totally unsupported once the US contractors left and the aircraft rapidly became unflyable. That is at least according to one good source that I have.
There was also one hell of a difference between the kit that ANA were left with and the kind of state-of-the-art kit that US/UK forces could deploy. It may look impressive but it lacked all the tactical bits and pieces that add up to make it a game changer.
Why are they going to fight a battle they know that they will loose and then be killed for fighting. Whereas if they do a deal they can walk/melt away.
from last night:
https://twitter.com/BabakTaghvaee/status/1427213409829937152?s=20
Uzbekistan after intially saying it crashed are now saying they shot it down, the two pilots ejected and survived though injured.
While I understand that without the better kit it disadvantaged them but presumably the Taliban didn’t have that either?
They have the kit now.
It’s a fair point but the gov troops were meant to out number one Taliban troops by around 10:1. Air cover is only needed when your outnumbered. It’s a fair point around the morale hit, but total collapse so quickly, just feels odd.
The Afghan never have chance bcs they never wholeheartedly wanted to fight Taliban themselves, no amount of outnumber will help them in such situation
Steve,
I feel that is down to the Islamic mindset, based on sharia law which allows prisoners to buy their freedom. Things aren’t helped by how the West affords a get out of jail card to anybody who tips up and claims asylum. Why the UK did just that with a Taliban thug who had blood on his hands. The media has also helped (looks at the BBC) who have always championed the likes of the Taliban and who have gone out of their way to peddle the “You are all going to die” line. So why should somebody die for his country, when he can head west, be given a new passport, house, money to spend , free medical care etc
Finally and a big finally unlike Germany, Japan and Korea who 20 years after their own defeats went out of their way to rebuild their country for the good of the country, In Afghanistan (like Iraq) Clan loyalty came before national loyalty which has resulted in vast amounts of corruption and nepotism.
We (the west) could have dealt with this, but instead we had orders to look the other way (because we didn’t want to offend the faithful, who find offence in everything and anything)
They have made the their bed, let them lie in it
Harsh but not one untrue word.
Spot on as always farouk.
I see the Guardian have already started promoting the line that Taliban and their ilk as victims of the West. Ironically from a woman living in the UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/16/guantanamo-detainee-mansoor-adayfi
Thanks for the link. But I wouldn’t lower myself to reading anything from the self loathing publication.
Come on. It’s good for a laugh on a dull day.
Just read it to be fair what he says is true GTMO was a big own goal. Now the guardian is always against the government and have a negative view on this but we should not shut ourselves in our own echo chamber.
He also talks about known terrorists being released before him just because he tried to stand up against guards for others which is no surprise. Now you can take his story with a pinch of salt, but he himself talk about this not preventing terrorism and also showing others have carte Blanche on what to do – China with ughurs, Egypt etc etc.
None the less none of this helps the FUBAR that we have in Afghanistan – seem Taliban are as surprised as all of us as to how quickly things happened.
I never read anything in the Guardian or Independent anymore they are too doom and gloom, and navel gazing wokeist.
So firstly, I have no idea what you mean by “the west affords a get out of jail card to anybody who tips up and claims asylum” – why do you think this? The UK is letting in about 10,000 refugees a year, far FAR below places like Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, who are currently housing millions of refugees.
“Why the UK did just that with a Taliban thug who had blood on his hands.” – I have no idea, obviously there needs to be strict protocols in place to prevent stuff like this, but no system is perfect, and I’m sure the media are willing to hype up anything like this out of proportion. I personally can’t remember the last terrorist attack here that was committed by a refugee. The most recent attack here was that guy in Plymouth who was British.
“The media has also helped (looks at the BBC) who have always championed the likes of the Taliban and who have gone out of their way to peddle the “You are all going to die” line” – firstly, the BBC have absolutely NOT been championing the likes of the Taliban. You can see this from every news story or video that they put out about the subject. They frequently highlight the barbarity of the Taliban, the things they do, the way they treat people etc.
Secondly, I don’t know what you mean by peddling the “you are all going to die” line? Do you have any links/articles/videos to back that up?
Lastly, corruption was a big problem in Afghanistan. But I really doubt the west failing to tackle this was due to “worrying about offending the faithful”. Rather it was probably more to do with money and entrenched interests/power.
The only way to get to the bottom of all the failings really would be an inquiry, which I hope the government will hold (although I’m not hopeful unfortunately).
Sean,
I wrote the West, not the U.K., by rewriting the argument you of course will arrive at a conclusion of your own making.
Oh regards the figure of 10K according to UNHCR:
“In the year ending March 2021, the UK received 26,903 asylum applications from main applicants only. “
Followed by
“According to UNHCR statistics, at the end of 2020 there were 132,349 refugees, 77,245 pending asylum cases and 4662 stateless persons in the UK.”
https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html
Sean,
Where did I claim that only asylum seekers are carrying out terrorist attacks in the U.K., please don’t attribute a racist mindset to me, especially seeing as I come from an Islamic family ( Church of England since I was taken into care) I have no problem with Muslims which might explain why we are attending my niece’s wedding on Friday.
Oh just for the record,
Reading stabbings last year
Glasgow stabbings last year
Manchester bombings 2017
London Bridge attacks 2017
The attack on police on the mall with a sword 2018
The Westminster car attack 2018
Parsons Green tube bombing.2017
Those are just what I remember , I pretty sure, if I looked it up, I could find more.
Sean,
in April the Taliban started a campaign targeting the media and journalists. In targeting the media the message gets promoted that it only are the Taliban on the rise, but it allows them to use the media to send the message
“ You are all going to die”
that is how you use the media to spread fear and how you demoralise the people fighting you.
<b>Afghanistan: Taliban Target Journalists, Women in Media</b>https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/01/afghanistan-taliban-target-journalists-women-media
as for the BBC , they not only have championed the likes of the Taliban as of the past few weeks they have been actually interviewing them, which is exactly what they did after they removed in 2001.
Most of the cities surrendered as they were starved out. With the Taliban controlling the countryside for the last year and there no longer being air support, food and ammunition could not longer reach the city garrisons and they withered on the vine. As the taliban controlled the roads and there was no airlift the government couldnt move its forces around the country to reinforce each other and the smaller Taliban force defeated the larger afghan army about five times its size in detail. Combine that with the idea of a nation state being quite alien to them when their loyalties are first and foremost to their tribal leaders and when the tide obviously turned they didnt have anything they believed in to fight for and just surrendered without a fight.
They havent gotten paid in months, in fa t Taliban are paying some to surrender. As well as probably not willing to die for a corrupt regime, that funnels aid money into their pockets.
You also have to wonder who is funding the Taliban of they can afford to pay off swathes of the ANA…
Chris,
That is an interesting point. Just as the west facilitated the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation, there is very strong evidence that Russia, Iran, Pakistan and China did likewise . In fact the deposed Afghan government arrested a load of Chinese spies 7 months ago dealing with the Taliban
And the Pakistan intelligence services were previously revealed to be bankrolling them even funding attacks against their own country due to its members sharing the same extremist religious beliefs.
Spot on. The Pakistani civil government has never been able to control them. Too many decent Pakistani politicians could attest to that.
Pakistani Military Intelligence, and other Pakistani branches. All acting as proxy for the CCP. Surrounding India. Friendly military in Myanmar. Russian/Chinese joint war games. All I guess part of the continuing “Great Game”. India needs to seriously up its game and fast.
Absolutely. I think it would be very naive of us not to think the Chinese, Russians and Pakistanis were not doing the same to us.
I do also wonder what Pakistan gets from having a very unstable neighbour?
Just read that the Chinese and Russians have recognised the Taliban and unlike the rest, still have their embassies in place in Kabul.
Pakistan is worried because no Afghan government since the 70’s has accepted the Durand Line as the border with Pakistan. When it was drawn it sliced through a region that was ethnically Pashtun.
So you risk Taliban style extremism with greater loyalty to Afghanistan taking hold in the Pakistan’s border region…
Access to the opium supplies, no doubt taking a cut from it and being able to place it worldwide much easier than the taliban will be able to.
The Taliban have been raking in a fortune from the drugs trade, with Afghanistan being the world’s largest heron producer. While they have only now taken the cities, the Taliban have been in control of the countryside for awhile where they ‘tax’ the production and export of heroin.
This money is being used to pay off local officials and ANA commanders, many of whom haven’t been paid for months due to the incompetence and corruption of the central government.
Hi Shaun,
This has happened before in South East Asia. I am not surprised at all, horrified, but not surprised. Nor it appears are senior allied commanders, only the politicians.
The problems and collapse have their roots in how the west gets itself involved in failing states. We get pulled in as a result of a sudden threat or attack. Which means we are scrambling to build our intelligence and evolve our plans as we get increasingly drawn in. Critically, we never have what we really need – a local we can trust to provide true leadership for their people.
We always seem to end up with corrupt, self interested and very mediocure people as allies. These in turn appoint their corrpupt, self interested and mediocure friends to senior positions across government and in the armed forces, to ensure there own positions.
So even if you get local solders on the ground willing to fight they rely on us to provide the leadership and ensure they are properly supplied and supported as their own governemnt and commanders are all too often too busy looking after themselves. We go, the leadership and support goes…
Panic follows…
All very predictable, very sad and very human. Now we face an uncertain future for all of us because now there is the real possibility that the Taliban, after initially seeming all very reasonable, show their true colours and let in their anti western terrorist mates.
Cheers CR
These are not so much failing states but more a case they still follow a tribal culture , western models of governmenta and western values simply do not work for them. We in the west view that as failure / corruption. The lesson is to keep out of it , we won’t win over hearts and minds, and for that very reason we won’t defeat the insurgents.
Just received this:
Sadly, that kinda sums it up…
it’s easier to give in and live..maybe, and in the end who can blame them.
This is truly heartbreaking. Where is Biden? He owns this one and is nowhere to be seen or heard. Sleeping?
HI Rob,
Up until the end of last week 70% of Americans supported the pull out. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts given what is happening. If the Taliban support and allow terrorists to operate from Afghanistan again Joe Bidden’s legacy will not be a happy one.
This is our Vietnam and it is indeed heartbreaking the raw fear and desperation at Kabul airport are awful.
Cheers CR
I suspect it will be some time before the impact is felt, first the Taliban need to reinforce control and then the terror groups can start rebuilding and planning. It will be much harder for them, considering the world is watching and expecting. Small isolated attacks on remote western bases/companies I can see, but anything bigger will take some time and by the biden will be long gone.
Steve,
What people seem to overlook is how Afghanistan under the Taliban/Al Q became a training ground for those who wanted to sign up for the terrorist cause. They were trained , in killing others, Bomb, bullet, knife and then they returned back to their home countries. The questions not asked by anybody is:
“Why?”
People have been asking ‘why’ but unfortunately it’s not a path the MSM nor any politician wants to go down, so these people are normally sounded out and derided. For the people a little bit aware the why is there clear as day, the thorny problem is how to solve it.
Vietnam was very different. The combined southern Vietnam forces and US forces were barely holding on, and the pull out of such a large number of US troops was always going to result in the north winning (you could argue the north was winning before the US withdraw). Afgan it’s a bit different, the gov forces were in the majority and the threat was not considered to be so significant, and yet the results are the same. It’s just odd.
Hi Steve,
I agree it will take time and Biden will likely be long gone, hence ‘legacy’. I think he will be remembered for all the wrong reasons and history will likely judge him harshly.
Biden has always said we should pull out and that the fight was against Al Qaeda not the Taliban. He urgued against Obarma’s surge, for example. The deal done by Trump gave notice of the US withdrawl and everyone has had time to plan for it. The Afghan people, including the army, did not trust their government and once our support disappeared so did belief in the state. Biden chose to follow the Trump plan.
This is what is so similar with South East Asia – numbers are actually a small part of the equation because at the end of the day it is down to each and everyone us to wake up every morning and have faith in the ‘system’ for the system to continue for another day. Afghans woke two weeks ago and realised that the system they had faith in had actually left… What remained collapsed.
I do not think it is odd at all. I think it is entirely predictable and unstandable. May be as a disabled person I have a different perspective on what it is to be vulnerable, but I can understand why the solder on the frontline would melt away or people on the street would head for the sirport once they saw the support structure they relied on was gone. I would very quickly be in a lot of trouble if our society collapsed… I kinda focuses the mind, moments like this because our whole world is very fragile. At anytime we are just hours from collapse but we trust the ‘system’ enough to keep it running day after day. Take that trust away and there is no system – we are the system.
The allied withdrawl so undermined trust in the system in Afghanistan it has simply stopped being…
CR
Yep plus the ARVN kept fighting for two years while slowly running out of everything from spares to fuel and finally bullets and shells.
Biden is merely implementing Trump’s policy. Badly so, but it’s still Trump’s policy. It was Trump who did a deal with the Taliban without consulting the Afghan government, completely undermining them. Biden could have drawn down much more slowly, but the final outcome would have been the same. One way or the other, this is another American foreign policy fiasco.
Wrong. What we are seeing is Biden policy not Trump. Note that the US Army already thrown Biden under bus saying they advised him to have 3000 men in Kabul to shore up the Government.
For Biden’s policy read Obama.
Biden did not need to implement the deal so badly and pull out on a politically significant day. However, Biden has reversed Trump’s deals and positions on Keystone, Nordstream, Iran, Paris climate deal, Israel. Blaming Trump in anyway is deranged. But logic and facts go out of the window when it comes to Trump. If you do recall Trump promised a massive intervention if the Taliban did not behave. Oddly Biden did not stick to that part of the deal. Then again he’s mentally ill.
Can you imagine the concern/fear of the pilots, trying to take off on a runway full of people, worrying about literally ingesting people into the engines and jeopardising the safety of their aircraft…
It is horrific.
If they stop then god knows that happens is they keep rolling……
Fingers crossed for the planes, pilots and passengers.
I’m a bit surprised that an air bridge cannot be organised from the civilian side of the airport by say the Pakistani authorities who through ISI are in bed with the Taliban so there is a way for people to get out. As that would take the pressure off the military side of the airport.
Frankly the Taliban won’t want the people who are separate to leave and letting them leave gets rid of a problem for them.
Somehow I do get the sense there is a little bit more nous being shown here. China and Russia are offering friendly relations, with the usual strings. Taliban will need money so they need relationships as poppies won’t fund everything they need to do.
Those poor, desperate people. What a tragedy.
My hope is these scenes are remembered by current and future politicians so they pause before ever again deciding to spend so much blood and treasure on the wrong wars; firstly since to some extent we own the resulting human suffering when they inevitably go wrong, but also because whilst we’ve been distracted our real strategic adversaries quietly erode and in some cases reverse our lead in military capability. State-on-state competition never left, we just took our eye off the ball.
People – tragedy. Summed it up well.
Russia and China are reportedly already looking for ‘good’ relations with the new ‘government’. Also sums it up…
CR
Indeed. On a related point, I suspect that for all of the partisan criticism of the pull-out, there is some behind the scenes realpolitik consensus which sees a Afghanistan under Taliban rule as a useful thorne in China’s Belt/Road – and perhaps may even have an influence on domestic politics in Xinjiang. In any event, when Russia / China do start to engage as they surely will, it will be interesting to see how they do it.
The Chinese were caught having secret talks with the Taliban in January, (Saw 10 spies deported) and from what I have heard they have secured a deal with them to open mines in the country. No doubt the Chinese won’t object to slave labour
https://apnews.com/article/china-taliban-1e40c629c150505a107b2e05c3a9b0cc
China do not care if the Taliban let them get what they want.
“In any event, when Russia / China do start to engage as they surely will, it will be interesting to see how they do it.”
I suspect it will be with a large chequebook and a very blind eye…
The Taliban are going to be the new government, that was almost a guarantee the moment west decided to leave so it is logical even if very untasteful to try and have good working relation with them as both Russia and China have different security concerns and in China case economic concerns compared to the west. What would you have both countries do otherwise?
China has already concluded deals with the Taliban for the extraction of Afghanistan’s mineral resources. I’m return the Taliban have promised not to interfere in China’s ethnic/cleansing of the Muslim Uyghurs in neighbouring Xingjiang province.
The scenes call for a land corridor to be established to allow Afghans to escape.
It would require a milltery operation by several thousand troops.
Scenes very similar to the last flights out of Danang in 75. What appalling chaos and tragedy is unfolding. Surely the troops flown in were there to put a cordon sanitaire around the airfield to prevent such scenes? It can of course get much worse if the Taliban decide to intervene. Pray for our troops.
I don’t blame anyone for leaving, but (corrupt officials aside) the only way the situation will improve is if all those who want a different way of life within afghanistan, remain and fight for it.
An externally imposed situation would never hold. A local central democratic government can only stand if sufficient numbers want it to
To see there Army fall apart so quickly, with there numbers there had unreal,seeing the news is hartbreaking all them poor people no doubt some of them Ex soldiers ,which no way with numbers been what there were could the UK take them .Now don’t get me wrong but choice it was Taliban or fight which there may of been able to hold some parts of there country.
Why is anyone surprised by these events? The Taliban collapsed just as quickly in 2001 when a few B52 strikes and special forces assisted a ragtag Northern Alliance of mainly non Pashtun groups. The Taliban ” government” was just as feeble as the latest Ghani version and disintegrated in weeks,
Central government,as understood in the developed world, has never really existed in Afghanistan. (The tribal areas of Pakistan are similarly barely under any effective government control.)
So it doesn’t take much to overthrow a Kabul administration. Establishing an effective and enduring government is much harder: Afghans couldn’t manage it, neither could the Soviet Union and now NATO has failed too.
It will be interesting to see whether a Taliban 2 government acts in a less extreme way then its predecessor and for how long. They do need to be made to understand that fostering terrorist attacks will meet with dire consequences.
The Taliban didn’t collapse in 2001. It did what any self-respecting asymmetrical opposing force did- it retreated, regrouped, infiltrated and gathered strength. Still making the same mistakes over the ages- the West doesn’t learn.
It wasn’t an asymmetrical opposing force; it had gained control of most of the country,except for the far north. In 2001, it lost that control in a few weeks, at very little cost to the West. Its return to major operations took years, funded and supported by Pakistan. The key point is the instability of any of the groupings in Afghanistan. The absence of any effective state structure means that control can change hands very quickly.
The Issue seems to be the Offical Government are corrupt to the core and based on that is why Trump had enough of governments not pulling there weight in there own defence.
don’t forget he kicked her Merkel in the balls,
How much more dignified was the video clip of the final Russian withdrawal in 1989. I recall the Russian General riding in an armoured vehicle convoy. He got out at the bridge over the Oxus River and waited until the convoy crossed. Then he walked over the bridge as the final Russian to leave. Leadership at its best!