Taliban crush opposition across Afghanistan as airport chaos builds

(CNN) – The Taliban acted swiftly to crush initial opposition to their rule across Afghanistan, clashing with protesters and forcing an entire city into lockdown, as a frantic rush to escape the country intensifies at Kabul International Airport.

A curfew will be imposed “indefinitely” across the city of Khost, in southeastern Afghanistan, on Thursday, several Taliban sources told CNN on Wednesday, after videos appeared on social media purporting to show hundreds of people there demonstrating against the seizure of power by the militant group.

All kinds of movement will be banned “while the joint forces of the Islamic Emirate carry out clearance operations” in the city, a source said. Around 650,000 Afghans are estimated to live in rural and urban areas in the surrounding Khost province.

The rapid closure of the opposition undermines repeated attempts by the Taliban to convince international media and observers that their rule will be more moderate and inclusive than two decades ago.

But it reflects the reality across the country, where similarly harsh approaches have been taken.

Tensions escalated especially on Thursday, as August 19 is Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the date Britain relinquished control of the country in 1919.

Afghans took to the streets of Kabul with the black, red and green national flag to commemorate the date, in defiance of the Taliban. In some cases they removed the black and white flag of the Taliban; A witness told CNN that the Taliban fired into the air in an attempt to disrupt the demonstration. It is unclear if anyone was injured.

Large Taliban convoys have also been deployed through the streets of the city, a CNN team witnessed. The convoys, consisting of two or three pickup trucks with at least six Taliban fighters in each, were seen circling various areas of the city with sirens blasting.

Sporadic shots were also heard, at a more intense rate than in previous days.

On Wednesday, Taliban fired into the crowd and beat protesters at a rally in Jalalabad, where protesters had removed the group’s flag from the main square, three witnesses told CNN.

And on the streets of Kabul, women who held prominent positions in the past two decades continue to fear for their safety.

At the capital’s airport, where for days images of frantic Afghans seeking to escape have underscored the dramatic outcome of two decades of U.S. involvement in the country, crowds swell and locals scramble through checkpoints. Taliban and enter the facility.

The US embassy in the city warned people Wednesday night that it cannot guarantee safe passage to the airport. The United States has evacuated 7,000 people in the past five days, the Pentagon said Thursday.

President Joe Biden, still facing international condemnation for his unapologetic stance on the US withdrawal and the subsequent rise of the Taliban, has suggested that US forces could stay past the withdrawal deadline to evacuate all Americans. .

But he didn’t make the same promise to Afghan partners, and locals face a chaotic rush to get on a flight.

Despair at Kabul Airport

As the final departure of the Western forces looms, the scenes at the airport get messier. The Pentagon admitted Thursday that US forces are not yet being used to rescue citizens from other parts of Kabul, and said it was prioritizing airport security.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that “we do not have the capacity to go out and pick up large numbers of people,” adding that he would “make a distinction between taking someone out in an extreme condition or circumstance versus going out and picking up a person. large number of US citizens. “

Instead, the US Embassy in Kabul notified Americans wishing to leave the country, as well as locally employed personnel and a “segment” of those with an Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) “to consider traveling to the country. airport “overnight, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday.

Price said he had seen reports of people unable to access the airport, telling reporters that “every report of someone who for whatever reason is unable to get to the airport is something we take very seriously.”

However, Price said the US government does not “have the resources to go beyond the airport compound” to facilitate evacuations at this time.

When asked if the United States has reached out to other nations to help with such an effort, Price told reporters, “It will be difficult to find a country that has the capacity on the ground, if there is one, in a position to do that.”

But there has been “no decision to change” the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing all US forces from Afghanistan at this time, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Thursday, adding “if and when there is a decision. to change that deadline, “more conversions with the Taliban will be necessary.

In recent days, images of mothers handing over their babies to British soldiers over the barbed wire outside the airport have surfaced on social media, highlighting the dire outlook for many Afghans trying to leave Kabul.

UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace said Thursday that they cannot accept unaccompanied minors and that those parents would have had to push their way through the crowd to reunite with their children. He added that it has been “very difficult” for the troops “to deal with some desperate people, many of whom just want to get out of the country.”

Wallace claimed the Taliban were “letting our people through” to the processing center “which is good news,” but people CNN spoke to on the ground have reported serious difficulties accessing the airport, with several saying they were rejected despite having the correct papers.

In all, 12 people have died in and around the airport since the Taliban took control of the capital on Sunday, Reuters reported Thursday, citing NATO sources and Taliban officials.

The deaths were caused by gunfire or stampedes by people trying to enter the airport in hopes of boarding an evacuation flight, Reuters reported. CNN has not been able to independently verify the reports.

A Dutch evacuation plane was forced to leave without passengers on Wednesday, while the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has lamented that the bloc cannot rescue all Afghans seeking a way out.

“These people have loyally promoted and defended the interests of the EU in Afghanistan for many years, it is our moral duty to protect them and help save as many people as possible,” he said. But he admitted: “We cannot get all Afghans out of the country.”

CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Sarah Dean, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Satyam Kaswala, Tara John and Anna Coren contributed to this report.