Some hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moves down a runway of the international airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug 16. 2021. (VERIFIED UGC VIA AP)
KABUL/WASHINGTON – The US Air Force said on Tuesday that it was investigating the circumstances surrounding human remains that were found in the wheel well of one of its C-17s that flew out of Kabul amid the chaos of the Taliban taking over the Afghan capital.
Images circulated on social media earlier this week of Afghans desperate to leave Kabul rushing toward a C-17 and clinging to its side. A separate video showed what appeared to be two people falling from a military plane as it flew out of Kabul.
In a statement, the Air Force said that a C-17 aircraft landed at Kabul's airport on Monday and was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians.
"Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible," the statement said.
It added that the Air Force's office of Special Investigation was reviewing information about the aircraft and the "loss of civilian lives- to include video documentation and the source of social media posts."
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks at his first news conference, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug 17, 2021. (RAHMAT GUL / AP)
On Tuesday, the Taliban said they wanted peaceful relations with other countries and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law, as they held their first official news briefing since their lightning seizure of Kabul.
The Taliban announcements, short on details but suggesting a softer line than during their rule 20 years ago, came as the United States and Western allies resumed evacuating diplomats and civilians the day after scenes of chaos at Kabul airport here as Afghans thronged the runway.
If (the Taliban) want any respect, if they want any recognition by the international community, they have to be very conscious of the fact that we will be watching how women and girls and, more broadly, the civilian community is treated by them as they try to form a government.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the United Nations
A White House official said military flights had evacuated about 1,100 Americans from Kabul on Tuesday.
As they consolidated power, the Taliban said one of their leaders and co-founders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had returned to Afghanistan for the first time in more than 10 years. Baradar was arrested in 2010, but released from prison in 2018 at the request of former US president Donald Trump’s administration so he could participate in peace talks.
“We don’t want any internal or external enemies,” the movement’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said.
Women would be allowed to work and study and “will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam,” he added.
As they rushed to evacuate, foreign powers assessed how to respond after Afghan forces melted away in just days, with what many had predicted as the likely fast unraveling of women’s rights.
“If (the Taliban) want any respect, if they want any recognition by the international community, they have to be very conscious of the fact that we will be watching how women and girls and, more broadly, the civilian community is treated by them as they try to form a government,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told MSNBC on Tuesday.
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US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said they had agreed to hold a virtual meeting of Group of Seven leaders next week to discuss a common strategy and approach to Afghanistan.
During their 1996-2001 rule, also guided by Islamic sharia 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.
The UN Human Rights Council will hold a special session in Geneva next week to address “serious human rights concerns” after the Taliban takeover, a UN statement said.
Ramiz Alakbarov, UN humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview the Taliban had assured the United Nations it can pursue humanitarian work in Afghanistan, which is suffering from a drought.
'Walk the talk'
The European Union said it would only cooperate with the Afghan government following the Taliban’s return to power if they respected fundamental rights, including those of women.
Afghan women take part in a gathering at a hall in Kabul on Aug 2, 2021 against the claimed human rights violations on women by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. (SAJJAD HUSSAIN / AFP)
During the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule, also guided by Islamic sharia law, they 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
Wihin Afghanistan, women expressed skepticism here.
Afghan girls’ education activist Pashtana Durrani, 23, was wary of Taliban promises. “They have to walk the talk. Right now they are not doing that,” she told Reuters.
Several women were ordered to leave their jobs here during the Taliban's rapid advance across Afghanistan.
Mujahid said the Taliban would not seek retribution against former soldiers and government officials, and were granting an amnesty for former soldiers as well as contractors and translators who worked for international forces.
ALSO READ: Taliban announce amnesty, urge women to join government
“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.
He also said families trying to flee the country at the airport should return home and nothing would happen to them.
Resistance and criticism
Mujahid’s conciliatory tone contrasted with comments by Afghan First Vice-President Amrullah Saleh, who declared himself the “legitimate caretaker president” and vowed not to bow to Kabul’s new rulers.
It was not immediately clear how much support Saleh enjoys in a country wearied by decades of conflict.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the Taliban should allow the departure of all those who want to leave Afghanistan, adding NATO’s aim was to help build a viable state and warning the alliance could strike if the country again becomes a breeding ground for terrorism.
The decision by Biden, a Democrat, to stick to the withdrawal deal struck last year by his Republican predecessor Trump has stirred widespread criticism at home here and among US allies.
Biden’s approval rating dropped by 7 percentage points to 46 percent, the lowest level of his seven-month-long presidency, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Monday. It also found that less than half of Americans liked how he has handled Afghanistan.
READ MORE: Chaotic scenes grip Afghan airport, with reports of deaths
Biden said he had had to decide between asking US 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 unwillingness to fight.
The US has frozen nearly US$9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipments of cash to the nation as it tries to keep a Taliban-led government from accessing the money, an administration official confirmed Tuesday.
The official said that any central bank assets that the Afghan government has in the US will not be available to the Taliban, which remains on the Treasury Department’s sanctions designation list.
Ajmal Ahmady, acting head of Da Afghan Bank, the nation’s central bank, early Monday tweeted that he learned on Friday that shipments of dollars would stop as the US tried to block any Taliban effort to gain access to the funds. DAB has US$9.5 billion in assets, a sizeable portion of which is in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and US-based financial institutions.
US sanctions on the Taliban mean that they cannot access any funds. The vast majority of DAB’s assets are not currently held in Afghanistan, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The US Treasury Department declined to comment.