Afghanistan: Taliban Leader Issues Order

Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has ordered the unconditional release of political detainees from all Afghan prisons.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, spokesman of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said on Thursday that the political prisoners will reunite with their families on Friday.

“The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered the release of political prisoners from all jails.

“The provincial governors will unconditionally release all political prisoners of low and high ranks from the country’s prisons and will hand them over to their families tomorrow,’’ Ahmadi tweeted.

The Taliban entered the Afghan capital on Aug. 15, ending weeks-long offensive and resulting in the collapse of the U.S.-backed government.

Kabul evacuees land in Germany as airlift gathers pace

In a piece of related news, two planes landed at Frankfurt Airport early Thursday,  with evacuees from the Afghan capital Kabul, as the pace of German evacuations increased following a chaotic start.

A total of around 500 people were on board the two chartered planes from Lufthansa and Uzbekistan Airways.

After landing in Germany, passengers spoke of chaos at the airport in Kabul.

Mahmud Sadjadi said he had seen dead people and heard gunshots.

“It is terrible, helplessness, hopelessness. Nothing but chaos,” he said of the situation in Kabul.

Another passenger, who did not want to give his name, spoke of organisational problems.

“The situation is difficult and not easy to get under control. But the people in Afghanistan,  need help. The world must help the Afghan people.’’

The two aircrafts  had taken off from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, where the Bundeswehr had established an evacuation hub.

The Ministry of Defence said it would evacuate “as many German nationals, local staff and other endangered persons’’ for as long as it can.

The evacuation operation will involve up to 600 soldiers and has been given a budget of some 40 million euros (47 million dollars), according to a cabinet decision.

Additional evacuation flights from Tashkent were expected in the course of Thursday.

The plan for the people to be taken from Tashkent on to Germany by national carrier Lufthansa and the first such flight arrived in Germany on Wednesday morning.

A total of about 130 passengers were on board the plane,  most of them Germans or nationals of other countries,  who were able to travel in or out without formalities.

All the Afghans who were on board would be taken to a reception facility in Hamburg, the German federal police said.

In total, the first group consisted of 17 to 19 people with Afghan passports.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees  would now be responsible for them.

Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine Westphalia,  already said  it would take in 1,800 Afghan refugees.

The state chancellery in Dusseldorf,  said on Wednesday that this figure would include 800 local Afghan workers,  who had worked for German organisations in the past few years.

A further 1,000 places were to be opened primarily to women,  who had  been working in the fields of civil rights, human rights, art and journalism.

Several other federal states were also preparing to take in hundreds of refugees at short notice, dpa has  learned.

Thousands of Afghans were currently still trying to flee their country,  after Taliban militants effectively seized power within a few weeks for the fear of unknown.

This has raised some concerns in Germany about a large-scale influx of refugees,  similar to the one that brought large numbers, fleeing the civil war in Syria in 2015.

An online poll conducted by the Civey polling institute for the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper,  suggests that almost two thirds, or 62.9 per cent, were worried about large numbers of refugees arriving in the country.

Almost a third, 30 per cent, did not agree with the statement, with the remainder undecided.

The political fall-out from the collapse of the Afghan government is starting to play out domestically, with Green MP Cem Ozdemir calling for a thorough reappraisal of failures in Germany’s Afghanistan policy.

Speaking on Deutschlandfunk public radio on Wednesday, Ozdemir blamed Foreign Minister Heiko Maas from the centre-left,  SPD for the current developments.

He said the minister had not listened to his own embassy in Kabul or to military experts from the Bundeswehr.

“Maas should have listened. The situation reports that the Foreign Office writes are just wishful thinking and didn’t correspond to the reality on  ground,’’ Ozdemir said.

He called for a pragmatic approach. The German ambassador to Afghanistan, Markus Potzel, held a first meeting with representatives of the Taliban in the Gulf emirate of Qatar on Wednesday, with the aim of securing safe passage to the airport for Afghans.

The talks had not yet yielded any agreements, Maas said.