Afghanistan's president flees the country as Taliban moves to take Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.
The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.
President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement that he left Afghanistan to spare the country any bloodshed.
"[The] Taliban have won the judgment of sword and guns and now they are responsible for protecting the countrymen's honor, wealth and self-esteem," Ghani wrote on Facebook, according to an automated translation.
Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women's rights rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor — who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital — remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam, as many watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound. The U.S. ambassador in Kabul left the compound and decamped to the capital's airport on Sunday.
The U.S. embassy urged American citizens in the country to shelter in place, saying in an alert that the "security situation in Kabul is changing quickly including at the airport."
Earlier, the Taliban also took control of Bagram air base, a senior U.S. official told CBS News, and prisoners at the base were being released. The prison at the former U.S. stronghold was home to 5,000 prisoners, including both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters.
Several hundred embassy employees have already been flown out of the country, a U.S. official told CBS News. Officials planned to evacuate the entire embassy compound and move all personnel to the airport by Sunday evening.
The U.S. military has taken over air traffic control responsibilities at the Kabul airport, the official said, adding that securing the airport and evacuating embassy staff remain the top priorities. About half of the 4,000 additional troops the Pentagon is sending to Kabul have landed and the rest will land in two to three days. Sending more combat troops into the airport is on the table, according to the U.S. official, who said that as soon as the troops come off, passengers go on.
Panic set in Sunday as many rushed to leave the country through the airport, the last route out of the country as the Taliban now hold every border crossing. NATO said it was "helping to maintain operations at Kabul airport to keep Afghanistan connected with the world."
In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.
Instead, the Taliban swiftly defeated, co-opted or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the U.S. military. But a peace deal with the U.S. limited direct military action targeting them, allowing them to prepare and move quickly to seize key areas when President Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of this month.
Many quickly drew comparisons between the fall of Kabul — helicopters rumbling overhead evacuating American diplomats — to the aftermath of the Vietnam War, which saw even more chaotic airborne rescues. Pressed on CNN about it, Blinken said: "This is not Saigon." However, he acknowledged the "hollowness" of the Afghan security forces.
"From the perspective of our strategic competitors around the world, there's nothing they would like more than see us in Afghanistan for another five, 10, 20 years," he said. "It's simply not in the national interest."
On Sunday, the insurgents entered the outskirts of Kabul but initially remained outside of the city's downtown. Meanwhile, Taliban negotiators in Kabul discussed the transfer of power, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. It remained unclear when that transfer would take place and who among the Taliban was negotiating.
The negotiators on the government side included former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation who has been a vocal critic of Ghani. Karzai appeared in a video posted online, his three young daughters around him, saying he remained in Kabul.
"We are trying to solve the issue of Afghanistan with the Taliban leadership peacefully," he said, while the roar of a passing helicopter could be heard overhead.
Afghanistan's acting defense minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, didn't hold back his criticism of the fleeing president.
"They tied our hands from behind and sold the country," he wrote on Twitter. "Curse Ghani and his gang."
The insurgents tried to calm residents of the capital, insisting their fighters wouldn't enter people's homes or interfere with businesses. They also said they'd offer an "amnesty" to those who worked with the Afghan government or foreign forces.
"No one's life, property and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk," the insurgents said in a statement.
But there have been reports of revenge killings and other brutal tactics in areas of the country the Taliban have seized in recent days.
One Afghan university student described feeling betrayed as she watched the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy.
"You failed the younger generation of Afghanistan," said Aisha Khurram, 22, who is now unsure of whether she'll be able to graduate in two months' time. "A generation ... raised in the modern Afghanistan were hoping to build the country with their own hands. They put blood, efforts and sweat into whatever we had right now."
Ahmad Mukhtar, David Martin, Christina Ruffini and Alana Anyse contributed reporting.