NATO begs Biden NOT to leave Kabul

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NATO has begged Joe Biden not to leave Kabul and urged the US to stay at the airport to get as many people out as possible – as American forces are accused of hiding behind the wire while British and European troops mount recuse missions into the city.

The US was urged to extend its August 31 deadline to save more evacuees from the Taliban by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference on Friday.

America is by far the strongest military power in Nato and it is unusual for the alliance to publicly issue requests to the White House.  

He said the challenge was not so much transporting people from Kabul but getting them to the airport in the first place, and this was ‘an urgent need’.

British, French and German special forces have been speeding into Kabul in armored cars, despite the huge risk from Taliban fighters, while the US forces are reportedly under strict orders to remain at the airport. 

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, today called it ‘humiliating to have British and French troops go into Kabul to rescue their citizens while American troops are ordered to stay hidden in the airport. Is this what the Biden-Austin-Milley “Woke” military will be like—timid, ineffective, unable to get the job done.’ 

The airport remains utterly chaotic, with footage today showing women and children being trampled as warning shots were fired and stun grenades thrown by desperate allied troops in an effort to disperse the thousands mobbing the entrances.

Kaisa Markhus, 30, a Norwegian national who returned from Kabul to Oslo today, told MailOnline that she saw children wandering around the airport alone after becoming separated from their families and that one desperate mother had even asked her to take her baby. 

‘One woman tried to hand me her baby and said, “Please, please take my child”, but I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to help. It just doesn’t work like that,’ Kaisa said.

‘She must have been desperate to do that.’

She added: ‘There were crying children, who had become separated from their parents and at least three babies who must have been handed over to soldiers by their desperate mothers.’

Meanwhile the German government said a male civilian was shot on their way to their airport but their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening and they will be evacuated ‘soon.’  

Biden is facing mounting fury across the world for abandoning Afghans to their fate – and yesterday it emerged that his administration last month that the Afghan capital would quickly fall to the Taliban after an American withdrawal.  

British SAS troops are now being sent outside the airport perimeter to find and extract those who are trapped, but it is almost certain the ‘small teams’ will not be able to reach everyone who needs help in time.  

And Germany said it has flown special forces helicopters into the country in the hopes that they can fly rescue missions to retrieve German citizens and others who are trapped in Kabul and bring them to the airport. 

Tokhi, 34, a former British interpreter, told The Times that he has been to the airport three times since UK forces emailed him early this week to say he had a seat on a flight out – but has so-far failed to get past even the first of two Taliban checkpoints blocking the entrance he needs to reach.

Meanwhile Shafiqa, who trained with British special forces near Kabul, said she and two female colleagues have filled out forms requesting space on UK flights but have yet to be called to the airport even as the Taliban tries to hunt them down.

The 26-year-old said she has fled her home due to rumours that Islamist fighters have accessed lists of British collaborators and are now using them as hit-lists. She is now moving between houses in the city in the hopes she can dodge the jihadists long enough for space on an evacuation flight to free up. 

Evacuation flights are continuing to depart today with the US hoping to take some 2,000 people out and the UK another 1,000. 

Britain has promised to evacuate some 7,000 UK citizens and Afghan staff from the country, in addition to 5,000 refugees, but armed forces minister James Heappey warned today that not everyone who needs help will get it.

‘The sad truth is, we don’t have it in our gift to stay there until absolutely everyone is out,’ he told BBC Radio 4. ‘The air bridge could last two more days, five more days, ten more days.’

Responding to criticism that British aircraft are leaving the airfield under-capacity, he said the armed forces are ‘working hard’ to make sure each plane is filled.  

On Thursday 963 people were taken out of Kabul, he said, and added that another 1,000 were due to leave on Friday – though that is below the government’s initial 1,200-a-day target.   

The US has evacuated some 7,000 people since Sunday, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday, bringing the total since July to 12,000 with a target of at least 22,000 – though aid groups have said 80,000 would need to be flown out to keep Biden’s promise to provide sanctuary to all those who helped US forces. 

NATO said a total of 18,000 people have been flown out of the country since Sunday which includes staff of smaller missions – far short of promises by western countries to take more than 100,000 Afghan refugees between them and even as some 50,000 wait for salvation outside the airport gates. 

Boris Johnson will today chair another meeting of COBRA to discuss the situation. 

One Cabinet source told MailOnline the processing had speeded up significantly over the past 24 hours. 

‘We have managed to speed it up a lot. The main thing is getting people to the airport, that is the difficult bit. They have to make it through the Taliban checkpoints and that seems to be getting harder.’ The source said the airlift would continue ‘as long as we can hold it together’. ‘I don’t think there is that long left,’ they added. 

One image laid bare the extent of the empty promises – showing what is thought to be a Norwegian mercy flight taking off from Kabul carrying the wife of a British ex-Marine who is still stranded in Afghanistan, but almost nobody else.

Posting the image on Twitter last night, Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing wrote: ‘Kaisa is on her way home! BUT this aircraft is empty… scandalous as thousands wait outside Kabul airport being crushed as they cannot get in. Sadly people will be left behind when this mission is over as we CANNOT get it right.’  

The UK government is thought to be drawing up contingency plans for a hasty 24-hour exit from the country, a medium-term withdrawal over a period of several days, and a more-orderly withdrawal over a longer period.

Whitehall sources told The Times that the longer-term option is preferred as being safer for British troops, but were forced to admit ‘we are in the American’s hands’ – with little indication coming from Washington as to how long they are willing to hold out.

Mr Farthing is one of dozens of westerners and visa holders who say they cannot get to the airport due to the huge crowds gathered around it, who are being brutalised by Taliban guards on a daily basis after the Islamists took over security.

Asila Wardak, human rights commissioner at The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said a male relative who was carrying travel documents got shot in the head outside the airport whilst begging the US to provide safe passage for all those it has promised sanctuary to so they can leave the country.

Meanwhile the Taliban has begun hunting through crowds at the airport and going door-to-door elsewhere in the country, looking for those who collaborated with US or NATO forces – torturing and executing those they find. 

General Haji Mullah Achakzai, police chief of Badghis Province near Herat, was gunned down in cold blood by Taliban fighters in disturbing footage posted online – while the relative of a German journalist was also shot to death by Islamist gunmen who were unable to find the reporter himself.

Nine ethnic Hazara men were also killed, Amnesty said, with six shot and three tortured to death – with one strangled to death using a scarf and one sliced to pieces with muscles stripped from his body.   

Taliban fighters have also been seen shooting over the heads of crowds at Kabul airport while striking people with rifles, as those on the ground reported beatings and whippings being dished out seemingly at random. Crowds have also gathered at the entrance to the military wing of the airport, which is guarded by US and British troops who have been firing into the air to disperse the crowds.

Westerners face a race against time to get out of Kabul, with control of the airport resting on the up to 60,000 troops. Joe Biden has said they will stay until all US citizens are evacuated, but there are suspicions among British troops that they could leave abruptly – leaving the 600 British unable to keep operating to evacuate UK nationals and interpreters. 

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace told The Times that British nationals and visa holders are being allowed through a Taliban ‘ring of steel’ around the airport, but that he is aware that not everyone is able to get through crowds at the airport or make it to Kabul from elsewhere in the country.

‘There are people emailing or telling us that they can’t make it,’ he admitted. ‘We encourage them to see what they can do to help… It’s very important that the Foreign Office reach out to those people.’ 

Meanwhile Mr Farthing told MailOnline that British troops had fired warning shots over the heads of a mother who was clutching a small baby at the airport. 

He said: ‘There were a number of shots fired overhead and people started rushing around in panic. I don’t know whether it was live rounds but even if it wasn’t the fear factor is the same. It does nothing to resolve the matter and makes an already tense situation much worse.’

While US and UK troops have said that firing warning shots is a last resort, the Taliban are causing pandemonium and were filmed today shooting from the hip just yards away from women and children, and whacking people with the butts of their rifles. 

Such is the desperation among crowds at the airport that women have resorted to passing babies over barbed wire to soldiers in a vain attempt to get them out of the country. 

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s job was hanging by a thread last night as it emerged the crucial phone call that was delegated to a junior minister never took place.

Tory MPs yesterday joined a ferocious backlash against Mr Raab over his failure to intervene while on holiday to help airlift translators out of Afghanistan. The Mail revealed yesterday that the Foreign Secretary had been advised by officials to interrupt his luxury trip to Crete on Friday to urgently contact his Afghan counterpart.

Mr Raab, however, failed to make the call and it was ‘delegated’ to the duty Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith. It was thought the telephone conversation had then taken place the following day.

But in an explosive development last night it emerged the call had never actually taken place. The Foreign Office admitted that as the Afghan regime collapsed, it had proved impossible to rearrange.

The revelation will intensify the pressure on Mr Raab, who yesterday faced a clamour to consider his position and resign.

Yesterday, he insisted he would not step down as he broke cover to hold a virtual meeting of G7 leaders. The Foreign Office released pictures of the Foreign Secretary at work and on the phone and said he was working to provide humanitarian assistance and support in Afghanistan.

Afghans who risked their lives by working as translators alongside British soldiers accused the Foreign Secretary of a ‘betrayal’ and warned that his failure to get urgent assistance could cost lives.

Angry Conservative MPs accused Mr Raab for being ‘asleep at the wheel’ and of lacking commitment to the job, with one Tory peer saying he should reflect on his future. Opposition parties meanwhile, said Mr Raab was guilty of a ‘dereliction of duty’ and called for him to be sacked.

Afghan translator Rafi Hottak, who was injured while alongside soldiers in Helmand, was among those to tell of his fury last night, saying: ‘It is a betrayal.

‘The priority should have been British citizens and those Afghans who helped them. They are trapped in chaos now and in the days and hours before the Taliban arrived anything that could have been done should have been done.’

And one angry Tory MP said: ‘Raab was asleep at the wheel. Backbench MPs are absolutely livid about his ‘not my problem guv’ attitude, as if it was not his responsibility. It has really riled up colleagues. The issue is not that he was on holiday, it is that he seemed to be unaware of what was happening.’

Last night, a leaked United Nations report warned the Taliban were now plotting murderous revenge against those Afghans who had worked with the West. The head of the group providing intelligence to the UN warned the Taliban were carrying out a highly-organised door-to-door hunt for people on their wanted list.

Female demonstrators took to the streets of Kabul waving the black, red and green flag which has become a symbol of defiance to the country’s jihadist rulers.

They were joined by thousands across the country who celebrated the 1919 handover of power from the British by rejecting their new overlords. It comes just a day after three were shot dead for flying the flag during protests.

The Taliban responded with beatings and gunfire while tearing down flags, despite their pledge to be a ‘reformed’ and ‘moderate’ version of the brutal outfit which controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Islamists fighters have also been celebrating independence day in their own fashion – by flying their black and white flag and claiming victory over American forces.

The chaos outside the airport appears to be growing by the day and is causing dangerous stampedes in which several people have already been killed this week, including a 14-year-old girl.  

Former British Marine, Mr Farthing, told MailOnline: ‘Two expats – one British and one Norwegian – have already been forced to turn back this morning because they can’t get through.

‘And last night a UN convoy carrying various foreign nationals, who had been working in Afghanistan for NGOs, had to turn round because of the sheer volume of people on the street.’

An Afghan-Australian trying to leave the country also told ABC it is ‘not possible’ to get to the airport because there is ‘lots of firing’ and ‘too many people’ while Max Sangeen, a Canadian interpreter, said his wife and children – including a 20-day-old baby – are trapped in Kabul despite having the correct documents.

But it is not clear what western troops can do to help. There are around 6,000 American and 900 British soldiers at the airport – alongside smaller numbers of Turks and Australians – but their jurisdiction only extends up to the perimeter wall. Beyond that, the Taliban is in charge.

The huge US contingent keeping the airport secured piles pressure on Britain to get its citizens out quickly, with the smaller UK force unlikely to be able the hold the site if the Americans leave.

Those on the ground say the Islamists have little or no idea what they are doing or who to let through, as the UN warned fighters are hunting through the crowd for those who collaborated with British or American forces so they can be ‘punished’ – despite public reassurances that there will be no reprisal attacks.

Mr Wallace said Taliban guards are allowing people with travel documents through checkpoints and British flights are not leaving the country empty – insisting that ‘not a single seat is wasted’. He revealed 120 people were evacuated this morning, with 138 due to follow later. 

There were eight RAF transport planes – made up of A400 Atlas, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemasters – scheduled to leave Kabul today. But with military transports able to carry up to 150, it means there will have been empty seats on the flights despite Mr Wallace’s claims. 

The passengers were made up of British citizens, media and human rights staff and Afghans who had worked for the British. The Ministry of Defence confirmed there were six British flights out of Kabul on Wednesday – despite Mr Wallace saying there were seven to 10 daily – meaning a maximum of 900 passengers were on board and free from the Taliban.

Meanwhile Joe Biden said when pressed Wednesday US troops were ‘going to stay’ in Afghanistan until they get American citizens out, even if it means running through an August 31 deadline order. The US President made the statement despite his own order soldiers will leave by the date, acknowledging the effort could run over if its citizens are still stuck in Afghanistan amid security and bureaucratic hurdles. 

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he expects 18 US flights to take off today, though it is not clear how many people will be able to board each plane.

But Farthing slammed the comments as naive, saying: ‘Nobody can actually reach [the processing centre] because of the crowds and the chaos surrounding it. 

‘It’s a lottery whether you get picked to get through the security. At the moment people who have seats booked on flights out of the airport are being turned back while others who storm fencing or are picked completely at random are getting on planes.

‘I’m livid at the Government’s mishandling of this, they need to take a moment, get their heads together, and work out a way with the Americans to help fly out ex-pats and those who need safety – like those who work for me – because otherwise we are looking at the worst humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan for a generation.’

Fawad Ahmadzai, another Canadian interpreter, said he and his family – a wife and four children – had been forced to ‘fight’ their way through guards to get to the airport terminal – saying they ignored his Canadian travel documents, beat him, and shot at him. 

‘I was waving at them that I am a Canadian citizen,’ he said. ‘They didn’t even care about which passport I carry, they would only push us and hit us, and shooting ahead of us, scaring us so that we would leave.’

German national Vanessa Faizi, who had become trapped in Kabul after going to Afghanistan to visit family, spoke of violence at the airport before she managed to get a flight out. 

‘We saw children being trampled on,’ she told journalists at an airport back in Germany.

Mr Wallace urged Afghan women not to pass babies to soldiers, saying unaccompanied children will not be put on flights. He did not say where the children will end up instead. 

Elsewhere, Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw – insisting chaos was inevitable while dismissing footage of people falling to their deaths from US planes as happening ‘four or five days ago’.

Boris Johnson was also mauled over the British government’s response to the crisis in a Commons debate, while foreign secretary Dominic Raab was facing calls to resign after it emerged he failed to make a crucial phone call about getting Afghan translators out of the country – delegating to a junior minister.

Labour MP Tom Tugendhat summed up the feeling of dismay when he said: ‘This is what defeat looks like.’  

Mr Wallace also warned of the long-term damage the retreat from Afghanistan will do to the perception of western power, saying the scenes playing out in Kabul will encourage enemies in Moscow.

‘What I’m uncomfortable with is that we have a world order now, where resolve is perceived by our adversaries as weak, the West’s resolve,’ Wallace told BBC TV.

‘That is something we should all worry about: if the West is seen not to have resolve and it fractures, then our adversaries like Russia find that encouraging,’ Wallace told LBC radio.

Britain fears the Taliban’s return and the vacuum left by the West’s chaotic withdrawal will allow militants from al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, just 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

As the airlift of Western citizens and Afghans who worked for foreign governments sought to ramp up, Biden said US forces will remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past the August 31 deadline for complete withdrawal.

In total, at least 8,000 people have been evacuated since Sunday, a Western security source in Kabul said.

A day earlier armed Taliban members prevented people from getting into the airport compound.

‘It’s a complete disaster. The Taliban were firing into the air, pushing people, beating them with AK47s,’ said one person who was trying to get through on Wednesday.

A Taliban official said commanders and soldiers had fired into the air to disperse crowds outside Kabul airport, but told Reuters: ‘We have no intention to injure anyone.’

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said domestic air carriers and civilian pilots will be allowed to fly into Kabul to conduct evacuation or relief flights only with prior US Defense Department approval.

Facing a barrage of criticism over the US withdrawal, Biden said chaos was inevitable. Asked in an interview with ABC News if the exit of US troops could have been handled better, Biden said: ‘No. … The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens.’

A new government to replace that of President Ashraf Ghani, who is in exile in the United Arab Emirates, may take the form of a ruling council, with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge, a senior member of the group said.

Afghanistan would not be a democracy. ‘It is sharia law and that is it,’ Waheedullah Hashimi, a senior Taliban official, told Reuters.

Ghani, who has been bitterly criticised by former ministers for leaving Afghanistan as Taliban forces swept into Kabul on Sunday, said he had followed the advice of government officials. He denied reports he took large sums of money with him.

‘If I had stayed, I would be witnessing bloodshed in Kabul,’ Ghani said in a video streamed on Facebook.

Meanwhile the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan’s Independence Day on Thursday by declaring it had beaten ‘the arrogant of power of the world’ in the United States, but challenges to their rule ranging from running the country’s frozen government to potentially facing armed opposition began to emerge.

From ATMs being out of cash to worries about food across this nation of 38 million people reliant on imports, the Taliban face all the challenges of the civilian government they dethroned without the level of international aid it enjoyed. 

The Taliban so far have offered no plans for the government they plan to lead, other than to say it will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. But the pressure continues to grow.

‘A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,’ warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan.

Thursday marked Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule in the central Asian nation.

‘Fortunately, today we are celebrating the anniversary of independence from Britain,’ the Taliban said. ‘We at the same time as a result of our jihadi resistance forced another arrogant of power of the world, the United States, to fail and retreat from our holy territory of Afghanistan.’

Unacknowledged by the insurgents, however, was their violent suppression of a protest Wednesday in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which saw demonstrations lower the Taliban’s flag and replace it with Afghanistan’s tricolor. At least one person was killed.

While urging people to return to work, most government officials remain hiding in their homes or attempting to flee the Taliban.

Questions remain over Afghanistan’s $9 billion foreign reserves, the vast majority now apparently frozen in the US. The country’s Central Bank head warns the country’s supply of physical US dollars is ‘close to zero,’ which will see inflation raise the prices of needed food while depreciating its currency, the afghani. 

In another blow to the country, a drought has seen over 40 per cent of the country’s crop lost, McGroarty said. Many fled the Taliban advance and now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.

‘This is really Afghanistan’s hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,’ she said.

Two of Afghanistan’s key border crossings with Pakistan, Torkham near Jalalabad and Chaman near Spin Boldak, are now open for cross-border trade. 

Hundreds of trucks have passed through, Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

But traders still fear insecurity on the roads, confusion over customs duties and pressures to price their goods even higher given the economic conditions.

There has been no armed opposition to the Taliban. But videos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of the Northern Alliance militias that allied with the US during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, appear to show potential opposition figures gathering there. That area is in the only province that has not fallen to the Taliban.

Those figures include members of the deposed government – Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who asserted on Twitter that he is the country’s rightful president, and Defense Minister Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi – as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, Massoud asked for weapons and aid to fight the Taliban.

He wrote: ‘I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban.

‘The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.’

Afghan protesters defied the Taliban for a second day today, waving their national flag in scattered demonstrations that were met with renewed violence by the militants who are facing growing challenges to their rule.

A UN official warned of dire food shortages in this nation of 38 million people reliant on imports and experts said the country was severely short on cash, highlighting that the Taliban face the same problems as the civilian government they dethroned without the level of international aid it enjoyed.

In light of these challenges, the militants have moved quickly to suppress any dissent, despite their promises they have become more moderate since they last imposed draconian rule on Afghanistan. Many fear the Taliban will succeed in erasing two decades of efforts to expand women’s and human rights and remake the country.

A procession of cars and people near Kabul’s airport carried long black, red and green banners in honor of the Afghan flag – a banner that is becoming a symbol of defiance since the militants have their own flag. At another protest in Nangarhar province, video posted online showed one demonstrator with a gunshot wound bleeding, as onlookers tried to carry him away.

In Khost province, Taliban authorities instituted a 24-hour curfew Thursday after violently breaking up another protest, according to information obtained by journalists monitoring from abroad. The militants did not immediately acknowledge the demonstration or the curfew.

Protesters also took the streets in Kunar province, according to witnesses and social media videos that lined up with reporting by The Associated Press.

The demonstrations – which come as Afghans mark the Independence Day holiday that commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule – were a remarkable show of defiance after the insurgents violently dispersed a protest Wednesday. At that rally, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, demonstrators lowered the Taliban’s flag and replace it with Afghanistan’s tricolor. At least one person was killed.

Meanwhile, opposition figures gathering in the last area of the country not under Taliban rule talked of launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which allied with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.

It was not clear how serious a threat they posed given that the militants overran nearly the entire country in a matter of days with little resistance from Afghan forces.

The Taliban so far have offered no specifics on how they will lead, other than to say they will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. They are in talks with senior officials of previous Afghan governments. But they face an increasingly precarious situation.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘A mother tried to give me her baby’: One of the few Westerners to make it through the human tide outside Kabul airport tells her harrowing story – and says the chaos is only getting WORSE

The wife of a former Royal Marine commando who was evacuated out of Afghanistan last night on an almost empty plane has finally arrived home and revealed the dramatic details of her escape.

Kaisa Markhus, 30, touched down in her native Norway this morning and breathed a huge sigh of relief as she met her mother and father in Oslo.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, she told of the chaotic scenes at Kabul Airport where a distressed mother tried to get her to take a baby with her and of the ‘lonely sadness’ of the rescue transport with only a handful of people on board.

‘There are thousands trying to get into the airport and once through the gates we found a large group of people, both Afghan and Americans, trying to get on board military aircraft. T

‘There were crying children, who had become separated from their parents and at least three babies who must have been handed over to soldiers by their desperate mothers,’ said Kaisa.

‘Once on the plane, we waited on the tarmac for hours for people to get through. But eventually we had to take off. I just had a feeling of sadness because the flight was so empty’.

In her four-day battle to land back in Europe, Kaisa, the partner of British ex-soldier Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing, was nearly crushed to death in a stampede outside Kabul Airport, was placed in a safe house.

She told today how she got to Kabul Airport early yesterday morning to find thousands of locals besieging a barbed wire perimeter fence trying to force their way inside and on to some of the military planes evacuating Westerners.

She and a pregnant American friend, who manages the Nowzad animal sanctuary set up by her partner Pen, had to physically push their way through a sea of men, women and children to get to an access gate.

Once there, they had to get the attention of U.S soldiers manning the checkpoint, who had to examine their paperwork before letting them through.

During the hour-long wait to process their forms they had to remain in the crush outside the gate, frantically trying to avoid being sucked back into the crowd and out of sight of the soldiers.

Eventually they were waved through. Kaisa walked her American friend to the U.S processing centre before heading to the Norwegian office.

After her passport and paperwork was checked again, she boarded a virtually empty military plane, which remained on the tarmac for several hours waiting for fellow Norwegian ex-pats to board.

However, only a few stragglers managed to get through the chaos and confusion outside Kabul Airport and the plane had to take off with only a handful of passengers.

The military plane arrived at Georgia in the early hours of the morning and she caught a connecting commercial flight on to Oslo.

Speaking to MailOnline Kaisa said: ‘I’m very pleased and relieved to be home finally.

‘There are thousands of desperate and terrified people in Afghanistan who fear for their lives at the hands of the Taliban rulers and its these people who are crowding around Kabul Airport looking for any way out.

‘There are four gates to the airport and each one is surrounded by masses of people.

‘The problem is that unless you have valid paperwork and the proper forms to get through the gate, the soldiers won’t let you through.

‘That needs to be made clear to people because at the moment whole families are sleeping rough outside the perimeter fencing hoping to somehow get through.

‘And for those who do have seats booked on flights out of Afghanistan, nobody can get through the human tide outside Kabul Airport. It’s not getting any better, only worse as people get more desperate.

‘We need to somehow make it clear to the people that there is no point crowding outside the airport if you don’t have the right papers. They won’t get in and will only put their lives at risk in a dangerous crush.’

The journey home started for Kaisa on Tuesday when she and her friend attempted to get to the airport but were thwarted by large crowds gathered outside who had been encouraged by the fact that some locals had earlier managed to breach security and force their way onto military aircraft.

To keep the masses back, U.S soldiers fired a volley of warning shots over people’s heads, which sparked panic and confusion.

Kaisa and her friend were nearly trampled to death in the ensuing stampede and were left wandering the streets dazed and confused.

Luckily they were picked up by friends and whisked to separate safe houses in Kabul, where she was able to reassure Pen, 52, that she was in no danger.

Although Taliban fighters patrolled outside in trucks armed with AK47’s, the few encounters she had with them were positive.

Recalling her first dramatic attempt earlier in the week, she said: ‘It was not a nice experience at all.

‘There were a lot of scared people who just want a way out. One woman tried to hand me her baby and said ‘please, please take my child’ but I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to help. It just doesn’t work like that.

‘She must have been desperate to do that.

‘It was impossible to reach the gate as there were so many stronger men in front of us but when the shots rang out from the soldiers, people began running in all directions and we had to concentrate on not being thrown to the floor under the weight of the crowd.

‘I was more worried about my friend because she is pregnant but we somehow got clear but were then on our own in Kabul.

‘We were taken to two separate locations across the city and waited there for 48-hours before trying again.’

The Taliban have issued a country-wide curfew of between 10pm and 4am so Kaisa began her second, this time successful, attempt just after it had ended yesterday.

She continued: ‘We were told that first thing in the morning is usually quieter and not as many people gather outside the airport gates but when we got there, there was a familiar crush of people.

‘We got to the gate, having had to push ourselves to the front. You have to be able to make eye contact with the American soldiers guarding it and be able to hand over the proper documents to them

‘But as you are waiting, you have to somehow keep at the front of the crowd and stop people from pushing in front of you. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd and if they can’t see you, the soldiers can’t wave you in.

‘It was a huge relief to finally get into the airport. I walked my friend over to where the U.S processing centre was and it was pandemonium.

‘There was a large group of people, both Afghan and Americans, trying to get on board military aircraft. There were crying children, who had become separated from their parent and at least three babies who must have been handed over to soldiers by their desperate mothers.

‘The Norwegian processing centre was much quieter but we had to wait several hours on the tarmac waiting for people to come through, but of course they couldn’t because of the crowds outside the airport.

‘The Norwegian soldiers have been managing a hospital in Kabul but have been drafted into the airport to help get ex-pats home safely. They looked after me well.

‘But in the end I was one of only a few passengers to take off on that flight to Georgia. The plane was virtually empty.

‘It was a sad of reminder that our governments need to perhaps sit down with the Taliban and work out a way, somehow, of stopping the thousands of people massing outside the airport.’

Kaisa’s partner Pen, originally from Essex, has vowed to stay behind at the Kabul sanctuary until all of his 25 members of staff and their immediate family members – some 71 people in total – have been given that safe passage out of Afghanistan.

He served with the Royal Marines in Helmand Province in 2006 and later set up the Nowzad sanctuary for stray animals after falling in love with a stray dog during his tour.

The charity, which is backed by Ricky Gervais and Dame Judi Dench, is Afghanistan’s first official animal sanctuary and looks after more than 140 dogs, 60 cats, 24 donkeys and some horses.

The Taliban’s TRUE colours: Islamists beat Afghans for carrying the national flag and BAN female presenters from TV – as reports describe brutal torture and executions away from the Western media in Kabul 

The Taliban have been at pains to present a reformed image since marching into Kabul this weekend after US president Joe Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan.

But a there is mounting evidence that the hardline Islamist regime is anything but reformed from the despotic jihadists of 20 years ago, who brutally oppressed women and allied themselves with Al Qaeda terrorists

Now those are being exposed, and Afghanistan’s new rulers have proven beyond what little doubt there was that they are just as bloodthirsty and tyrannical as their equivalents from two decades ago.

The latest footage to emerge from within Afghanistan shows Taliban fighters attacking anyone carrying an Afghan national flag in at least a dozen incidents primarily in the capital Kabul.

It comes after human rights group Amnesty International revealed that Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of the country’s Ghazni province last month, with eyewitnesses giving harrowing accounts of the killings.

Six men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off during the atrocity, which took place between 4-6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district, the group revealed.

In another revenge killing, one regional police chief who stood against the Taliban was executed in cold blood by the jihadist group, local reports say.

Shocking video footage being circulated on the internet shows the kneeling handcuffed and blindfolded figure of General Haji Mullah Achakzai, chief of Badghis Province near Herat, being gunned down in a hail of bullets.

Among the other atrocities and oppression being reported:

The UN says jihadists are going door-to-door to threaten relatives of civil servants, interpreters and other consular staff, while other militants are even stopping people outside Kabul airport;  Taliban militants searched for a journalist for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and one of the reporter’s family members was shot dead;Three female TV anchors were barred from entering their channel’s studio by Taliban and were ordered to ‘to go home, remain there and never return’;  Senior Afghan officials said they have been forced into ‘deep hiding’ to avoid the marauding fighters who they suspect have gained access to government employee databases. 

Footage posted online shows Taliban fighters attacking anyone carrying an Afghan national flag in at least a dozen incidents primarily in the capital Kabul.

One video appears to show a heavily armed militant jumping out of a pickup filled with Taliban and pulling his gun on a man on a bicycle, who is shrouded in an Afghan flag.

The camouflage-wearing militant is seen hastily taking the black, red, and green national emblem off the cyclist before he lashes out and slaps the man in the face.

He then is seen walking back to a pickup adorned with the white and black Taliban flag and filled with militants. He then appears to angrily scrunch up the Afghan flag and put it on the floor of the pickup.

A second video posted online shows a Taliban fighter attacking an Afghan who was carrying the national flag, with his gun.

Footage shows the militant hit the man in the back of the head with the butt of his gun as he tries to flee. The fighter then turns the barrel of the gun on the man and thrusts it towards him several times, but does not threaten to shoot.

The fighter then turns the gun again and raises the weapon above his head before bringing it down on the defenceless man, who raises his arms to protect himself.

The video then pans to a Taliban fighter holding the national flag after apparently seizing it from the man.

Despite the Taliban’s claims of an ‘amnesty’ there is also mounting evidence that they are making it hard for any of their opponents to make it to the safety of Kabul airport and a US evacuation flight.

Terrifying video shows fighters spraying assault rifle bullets just yards away from women and children gathered at the airport’s perimeter.

A leaked UN dossier says the Taliban are ‘arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban.’

It was filed to the UN by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a group which provides intelligence on global conflicts.

That report followed the emergence of video the execution of General Haji Mullah Achakzai near Herat.

The disturbing clip of the police chief’s slaying was re-tweeted by former BBC Persia journalist Nasrin Nawa after it emerged on the feed of an apparent resistance group to the Taliban called @PanjshirProvince.

After a content warning, Ms Nawa added: ‘Haji Mullah, Police chief of Badghis province executed by #Taliban. This is their public amnesty!’

The Taliban had promised that there would be no acts of vengeance against former enemies following their takeover of Afghanistan on Saturday.

Gen. Achakzai, in his early 60s, was an avowed enemy of the Taliban and known as a seasoned fighter in the long-running conflict between the group and the forces of the Afghan civil government, which fell at the weekend.

According to reports, the governor and police chief of Laghman Province near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan have also been detained, with their fate to be decided by the Taliban high command.

The brutal execution follows numerous reports of Taliban patrols going door-to-door in some areas and taking men of fighting age into detention.

In the most brutal evidence, Human rights group Amnesty International interviewed eyewitnesses and reviewed photographic evidence following a series of killings in Mundarakht approximately 100 miles south west of Kabul. .

On 3 July 2021, fighting intensified in Ghazni province between Afghan government forces and the Taliban.

Villagers said they fled into the mountains to traditional iloks, their summer grazing land, where they have basic shelters.

There was not much food for the 30 families that fled, so the following morning, July 4, five men and four women returned to the village to get supplies.

They found that their homes had been looted, and Taliban fighters were waiting for them.

Wahed Qaraman, 45, was taken from his home by Taliban fighters who broke his legs and arms, shot him in the right leg, pulled his hair out, and beat his face with a blunt object.

Another man, Jaffar Rahimi, 63, was severely beaten and accused of working for the Afghan government after money was found in his pocket.

He was strangled to death with his own scarf.

Three people involved in the burial of Rahimi said that his body was covered in bruises, and the muscles of his arms had been carved off.

Sayed Abdul Hakim, 40, had been taken from his home, beaten with sticks and rifle butts, had his arms bound, and shot twice in the leg and twice in the chest.

His body was dumped next to a nearby creek.

One eyewitness, who assisted with the burials, told Amnesty International: ‘We asked the Taliban why they did this, and they told us, ”When it is the time of conflict, everyone dies, it doesn’t matter if you have guns or not. It is the time of war.’

Senior Afghan officials told The Telegraph they have been forced into ‘deep hiding’ to avoid the marauding fighters who they suspect have gained access to government employee databases.

Earlier this week, former British Army officers told the same paper that hundreds of elite Afghan soldiers had gone into hiding and were trying to flee the country.

The units were made up of the Taliban’s most feared enemies and there are fears that they are intent on exacting revenge.

Already, harrowing footage has emerged of the jihadists carrying out brutal executions of former government officials who surrendered.

Another senior figure in the former government, who spoke anonymously, said that he had been targeted for his view that women and girls should be educated.

Biden administration was warned LAST MONTH by US diplomats in Kabul of an impending Taliban ‘catastrophe’ if troops withdrew and was urged to evacuate ALL Americans starting on August 1 

State Department officials in the Kabul embassy told the Biden administration last month that the Afghan capital would fall and to speed up evacuations, a new report claims.

A dozen diplomats sent a confidential memo in a dissent channel to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on July 13 that the Taliban was rapidly gaining ground and the city was vulnerable to collapse, the Wall Street Journal reported.

On July 8, President Biden said it was ‘highly unlikely’ the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan and denied there would be chaos in Kabul.

It is the latest in a series of reported warnings the Biden administration potentially ignored as American forces left and the insurgents swept through the country with ease.

There are mounting questions over how the White House, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services were evaluating the future of Afghanistan, the threat of the Taliban and how quickly power would change hands.

Afghan security forces were collapsing, they said, and offered ways to mitigate the advancing insurgents.

But it may have been too late to stop them.

The State Department memo, according to the report, also called for the government to use tougher language on the violence in the past from the Taliban and urged them to start collecting information for Afghan allies who qualified for Special Immigrant Visas after working with US forces.

The Journal reported that 23 Embassy staffers signed the cable and rushed to deliver it considering the deteriorating situation in Kabul.

Blinken reviewed the cable, a personal familiar with it told the paper.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told the Journal: ‘He’s made clear that he welcomes and encourages use of the dissent channel, and is committed to its revitalization. We value constructive internal dissent.’

The memo urged the administration to start flights evacuating people out of the country no later than August 1st.

A former CIA counter-terrorism chief also advised the president’s campaign Kabul would crumble within days with a depleted American presence.

But in an interview released on Thursday morning, President Biden claimed that he was never told that such a rapid collapse was possible.

And a day earlier, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he never saw any intelligence warning that the Afghan government could fall so quickly.

‘There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,’ Milley said.

Their claims were disputed in a detailed account describing the state of understanding at the CIA written by Douglas London, the agency’s former counter-terrorism chief for south and south-west Asia, which offered a very different assessment.

He said the rapid collapse was one of a number of possible scenarios.

‘Ultimately, it was assessed, Afghan forces might capitulate under the circumstances we witnessed, in projections highlighted to Trump officials and future Biden officials alike,’ he wrote on the Just Security website.

London, who also served as a volunteer adviser to the Biden campaign after leaving the CIA in 2019, scoffed at the president’s claim that events in Afghanistan unfolded more rapidly than expected.

‘That’s misleading at best,’ he said. ‘The CIA anticipated it as a possible scenario.’

The Biden administration remains under intense pressure to explain what it did and did not know as it pushed ahead with the president’s order to bring home troops by Sept. 11.

Allies have said they were blindsided by the rapid pace and were not kept abreast of decision-making.

Britain’s most senior general said on Wednesday that the decision to abruptly leave Bagram air base, about 25 miles north of Kabul, on July 1 shattered Afghan morale.

London’s account says the Trump and Biden teams were given different estimates of how long President Ashraf Ghani and his security forces could resist a Taliban retreat, depending on the speed of withdrawal.

‘So, was it 30 days from withdrawal to collapse? 60? 18 months? Actually, it was all of the above, the projections aligning with the various ‘what ifs,” he wrote.

But both presidents, he said, were motivated by seeking a political win in bringing home troops and ending the country’s ‘forever wars.’

‘For the candidate, who had long advocated withdrawal, the outcome was, as it had been with Trump, a foregone conclusion despite what many among his counterterrorism advisors counseled,’ he wrote.

‘President Biden himself has said as much in terms of his mind being made up.’

During the past week, Biden has shifted blame to the intelligence community, insisting that the rapid advance of the Taliban had taken the administration by surprise.

‘The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,’ he said last week.

And in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Biden said there was no warning of such a precipitous fall.

‘Number one, as you know, the intelligence community did not say back in June or July that, in fact, this was gonna collapse like it did,’ he said.

Stephanopoulos proved for more detail. He asked: ‘They thought the Taliban would take over, but not this quickly?’

Biden replied: ‘But not this quickly. Not even close.’

In another part of the interview he said he could not remember ever being advised by senior Pentagon figures to maintain a military presence in the country.

Reports suggest that his generals urged him to leave 2,500 troops to support and train the Afghan force.

‘No, no one said that to me that I can recall,’ Biden said.

Milley echoed his commander-in-chief’s words during an earlier briefing when he said he had seen a range of forecasts.

‘The timeframe of a potential collapse was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure,’ he said.

‘There was nothing that I or anyone else saw it indicated a collapse of this army in this government in 11 days.’

After Kabul fell, regional experts have pointed out that anyone with an understanding of Afghanistan should have expected a possible cascade of surrenders or negotiations as commanders sensed the switch of momentum from government to Taliban.

London said those assessments were part of the briefings.

‘Switching sides for a better deal or to fight another day is a hallmark of Afghan history,’ he wrote. ‘And US policy to impose an American blueprint for a strong central government and integrated national army served only to enable Ghani’s disastrous and uncompromising stewardship.’