Terrified Afghan women were filmed pleading with US soldiers to let them through an airport gate in the capital today as evacuation efforts continue.
A clip of desperate women reaching through a metal gate and crying, "help, the Taliban are coming" as the weight of the crowd crushed them circulated on social media today.
The women are just a few of the 25,000 panicked citizens trying to enter the Hamid Karzai airport through its northern military gate.
Citizens have flocked to the airport in recent days, hoping for safe passage out of Afghanistan after Taliban fighters conquered Kabul in a lightning-fast offensive.
Despite assurances from the Islamists that their rule will not be as harsh as it was between 1996-2001, countless citizens are not willing to wait around and find out.
Women in particular were severely repressed by the Islamists 20 years ago, who denied them education, working rights, and banned them from being in public without a male escort.
The harsh Sharia law, which became state law, also forced all women to cover up in all-enveloping burqas.
Screaming citizens were seen on both sides of the Hamid Karzai airport over night. On the civilian side, another 25,000 gathered on the road approaching the airport, where Taliban gunmen patrolled.
As they arrived at the transport hub, they were crammed between concrete barriers where fighters armed with automatic rifles looked down on them from the airport wall.
Footage from the civilian side last night showed Taliban guards peeling off shots in the air above as men, women and children gathered there in a last ditch attempt to flee the country.
It comes as Boris Johnson's spokesman said the Government is aiming to to airlift 1,000 people out of Afghanistan every day in seven flights. He also promised to take on 25,000 Afghan refugees.
Armed Forces chief General Nick Carter has warned that it's "critical" to evacuate as many people as possible over the next 24 hours.
Despite the Government's promises of a large-scale evacuation, Sir Keir Starmer today tabled an NGO report saying a plane leaving Kabul with hardly any passengers because the Afghans couldn't get close to the plane - due to Taliban guards operating gates in.
According to reports, very few people have been granted access. Dozens of desperate citizens have tried to rush the gates whenever they were opened.
The outer gates are only the first barrier to departure, with four more manned by Taliban fighters inside the complex, which have taken some evacuees two days to move through.
Though some of the passengers are carrying travel documents, many have chanced going to the airport in the hopes of get out of the country, after images were circulated of American planes taking Afghans on board.
Citizens crushed between their fellow evacuation hopefuls have recalled being beaten by Taliban gunman, with rifle butts and knotted rope, and often putting gun barrels in their faces.
More than 2,200 diplomats and other civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a Western security official said on Wednesday, as efforts gathered pace to get people out after the Taliban seized the capital.
The Taliban have said they want peace and will not take revenge against old enemies. They also claimed they would respect the
rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
But thousands of Afghans, many of whom helped US-led foreign forces over two decades, are desperate to leave.
"We are continuing at a very fast momentum, logistics show no glitches as of now," the Western security official said.
"It was unclear when civilian flights would resume", he said.
"The official said those getting out included diplomatic staff, foreign security staff and Afghans who worked for
embassies."
He did not give a breakdown of how many Afghans were among the more than 2,200 people to leave, nor was it clear if that tally included more than 600 Afghan men, women and children who flew out on Sunday, crammed into a US military C-17 cargo aircraft.
The Taliban, fighting since their 2001 ouster to expel foreign forces, seized Kabul on Sunday after a lightning offensive as US-led Western forces withdrew under a deal that included a Taliban promise not to attack them as they leave.
US forces running the airport had to stop flights on Monday after thousands of frightened Afghans swamped the airfield looking for a flight out. Flights resumed on Tuesday as the situation came under control.
As the Taliban consolidated power, one of their leaders and co-founders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, returned to Afghanistan for the first time in more than 10 years.
A Taliban official said leaders would show themselves to the world, unlike in the past when they lived in secret.
"Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders," the senior Taliban official told Reuters. "There will be no shadow
of secrecy."
As Baradar was returning, a Taliban spokesman held their first news briefing since their return to Kabul, suggesting they would impose their laws more softly than during their harsh 1996-2001 rule.
"We don't want any internal or external enemies," Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's main spokesman, told reporters.
Women would be allowed to work and study and "will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam", he said.
During their rule, also guided by Sharia religious law, the Taliban stopped women from working. Girls were not allowed to go to school and women had to wear all-enveloping burqas to go out and then only when accompanied by a male relative.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, echoing leaders of other Western countries, said the Taliban would be judged on
their actions.
"We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access, and the rights of girls to receive an education," Johnson told parliament.
Many Afghans are also sceptical of the Taliban promises. Some said they could only wait and see.
"My family lived under the Taliban and maybe they really want to change or have changed but only time will tell and it's going to become clear very soon," said Ferishta Karimi, who runs a tailoring shop for women.
Mujahid said the Taliban would not seek retribution against former soldiers and government officials, and were granting an amnesty for ex-soldiers as well as contractors and translators who worked for international forces.
"Nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors," he said, adding that there was a "huge difference" between the Taliban now and 20 years ago.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Johnson said they had agreed to hold a virtual meeting of Group of Seven leaders next week to discuss a common approach to Afghanistan.
The decision by Biden, a Democrat, to stick to the withdrawal deal struck last year by his Republican predecessor,
Donald Trump, has stirred widespread criticism at home and among U.S. allies.
Biden said he had to decide between asking U.S. forces to fight endlessly or follow through on Trump's withdrawal deal. He blamed the Taliban takeover on Afghan leaders who fled and the army's reluctance to fight.
A US military plane that left Kabul with desperate stowaways was later forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan after human remains were found in its landing gear, it is claimed.
A picture has emerged purporting to show plane 1109 on the ground in Tashkent after diverting from its planned route.
Earlier footage from Kabul shows stowaways hanging on as the C17 military transport aircraft prepared to take off.
Crowds also surrounded the plane on the tarmac in images symbolising the terror of many Afghans over the Taliban takeover of their country following the exodus of US and other Western troops.
An especially distressing video clip shows an Afghan man apparently trapped or strapped to the landing gear of another US plane on a mercy mission to fly people out of Kabul.
And on Monday there were horrific videos of several people falling from a US transport plane as it left Kabul.
The latest pictures evidently shows the US plane after landing in Tashkent, the Uzbekistan capital, a distance of around 470 miles.
The pilots could not close the landing gear, and later human remains were found in a wheel, it is reported.
Without naming Tashkent, the Washington Post cited a US official saying that stowaways falling from the sky “absolutely happened”.
The report added: “It is believed that they were Afghans who climbed aboard the landing gear and attempted to stow away as the plane took off.
“People familiar with the situation said the pilots declared an emergency when they could not put their landing gear up.
“The crew diverted and landed in a nearby third country, and some human remains were found in the wheel well when it was inspected.”
The flying time from Kabul to Tashkent is just over an hour.
Russian central Asian expert Igor Dimitriev posted the image of the plane in Tashkent which he was sent by a follower.
“My subscriber says that the American plane tail number 1109 is at Tashkent airport,” he wrote.
“This is the same plane on the outer side of which the Afghan men tried to leave Kabul.”
Politico also reported that the plane was rendered “temporarily inoperable’ after the hasty take-off from Kabul.
RT Russia said: “Human remains were found inside the landing gear of the US military transport aircraft returning from Kabul."
