Taliban plot next steps as US retreat accelerates

A surge of American troops restored order and evacuation flights resumed from Afghanistan‘s main international airport Tuesday, while Taliban representatives now ruling Kabul began a publicity blitz to plead for calm and convince the world the militant group has changed its ways since ruling over the Afghan capital with an iron Islamist fist two decades ago.

A top Taliban leader issued a statement ordering the group’s fighters not to enter the homes of ordinary Afghans, while spokesmen claimed they’ll honor women’s rights, as long as those rights fit within the group’s definition of Islamic law â€" an assurance that fell largely on deaf ears as men, women and children tied to the fallen U.S.-backed government continued to scramble for the exits in Kabul.

The scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport was, however, notably calmer Tuesday than it had been a day earlier when chaos reigned as throngs of people rushed the tarmac and seven Afghans were killed, including several who fell from the wheel well of an American military transport plane after it had left the runway.

Biden administration officials said more than 4,000 U.S. troops are now at the airport, arriving via waves of C-17 transport planes, several of which were later used to ferry U.S. citizens home. Thousands of Afghans are also being housed in third countries or in temporary holding facilities at American military bases.

Pentagon officials said the goal is to move as many as 9,000 passengers a day out of Kabul. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration had set a deadline of Aug. 31 to complete the evacuation amid uncertainty over the extent to which the Taliban may seek to violently halt the operation.

The U.S. and other governments reached out to Afghanistan‘s new rulers Tuesday, but fears remain high that the Taliban fighters who swept into the Afghan capital Sunday are no different from the forces that held power there two decades ago, when the militants’ gave safe haven to al Qaeda and imposed a harsh brand of sharia law notorious for public displays of brutality, including the regular stoning to death of young women accused of adultery.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid held a press conference in Kabul Tuesday to assert the group will now honor women’s rights, albeit within the norms of Islamic law.

While Mr. Mujahid provided few specific details, he said the Taliban also hopes to allow private media to “remain independent” as long as they don’t “work against national values.”

The Associated Press cited Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban‘s cultural commission, as saying Tuesday that the group will extend an “amnesty” for Afghans and encouraging women to join the government.

Kabul-based freelance journalist Bilal Sarwary said there were signs of life in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, but that things remained uncertain for Afghans as well as for the Taliban.

“Shops are opening up, some restaurants are also open, but this is still a city, you know, that does not have its old traffic jams and the hustle and bustle of life,” Mr. Sarwary told the France 24 network.

“For the Taliban, this is also a very new Afghanistan,” he said. “There are social and cultural changes, people have access to social media searches [and] journalism is a big thing, and the Taliban have a generation of their own that were on social media, in cultural departments in other departments, so they know the changes.”

It remains to be seen, Mr. Sarwary said, whether the Taliban promises are “short term” or indicative of a “new Afghanistan.”

Deep distrust

Afghanistan‘s United Nations ambassador â€" a man appointed by the former U.S.-backed government and whose own status is now uncertain â€" has warned the Taliban cannot be trusted and that action must be taken to “prevent Afghanistan descending into a civil war and becoming a pariah state.”

Ghulam Isaczai told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday that he was “speaking on behalf of millions of people in Afghanistan, whose fate hangs in the balance and are faced with an extremely uncertain future,” including “millions of Afghan girls and women who are about to lose their freedom to go to school, to work and to participate in the political, economic and social life of the country.”

“We have [already] seen gruesome images of Taliban’s mass executions of military personnel and target killing of civilians in Kandahar and other big cities,” Mr. Isaczai said. “Kabul residents are reporting the Taliban have already started house-to-house searches in some neighborhoods, registering names and looking for people in their target list. There are already reports of target killings and looting in the city.

“Kabul residents are living in absolute fear right now,” he said.

That claim has put international governments on edge, sparking debate over whether to cancel security, humanitarian and development aid that had been slated to go to the Afghan government.

U.S. adversaries, including China, have sent positive messages signaling a desire to work with the Taliban and increase development lending for Afghanistan now that the U.S.-aligned government has fallen.

But U.S. allies are circumspect. Germany on Tuesday suspended  more than $290 million in development aid to Afghanistan for 2021. Sweden also indicated it would slow aid to the country, although Britain committed to an increase.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said humanitarian aid could rise by 10%. He said the aid budget would be reconfigured for development and humanitarian purposes and that the Taliban would not get any money previously earmarked for security.

Turkey, a Muslim country and one of the biggest NATO allies, issued a hopeful but cautious message on Tuesday. “We view positively the messages that the Taliban has given so far, whether to foreigners, to diplomatic individuals or its own people,” said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. “We hope to see these in action as well.”

At the militant group’s press conference, Mr. Mujahid promised the Taliban will seek no revenge against those who worked with the former U.S.-backed government in Kabul or with foreign governments or forces. “We assure you that nobody will go to their doors to ask why they helped,” he said.

The message was backed by a statement Mullah Yaqoob, the son of Taliban co-founder Mullah Omar, who said the group’s fighters are barred from entering people’ homes and should not be confiscating weapons or vehicles belonging to people who worked for the former Afghan government.

Taliban leaders have reportedly also moved to keep much of the Afghan capital’s local government in place, asking Kabul Mayor Muhammad Dawood Sultanzoy to remain in his post for the time being, while also asking the country’s acting health minister not to resign.

Not in a hurry

Whether the more tolerant approach will last is anybody’s guess at the moment.

The Taliban “are not in a hurry to replace everybody,” one adviser to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who asked not to be identified to avoid any reprisals told the Los Angeles Times. “Once you get into these technical matters â€" projects, construction, dams, roads, the civil service â€" it’s a more complicated system and operation than they have ever been involved in, and they’ll be held accountable and will have scrutiny.”

The Taliban‘s publicity blitz stands in sharp contrast to the exodus from Kabul now taking place. Mistrust of the group stems from what older generations of Afghans remember of the Taliban‘s ultraconservative Islamist views, which included severe restrictions on women as well as public amputations as punishments for alleged crimes during the years prior to the group’s ousting by a U.S-led invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Many fear the Taliban will soon be carrying out abuses and targeting anyone who does not conform to the group’s hard-line strictures. As Taliban fighters patrolled Kabul‘s streets on Tuesday, many residents stayed home, fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted during recent days.

Some in Kabul allege the fighters have lists of people who cooperated with the government and are seeking them out.

Many women have expressed dread that the two-decade Western experiment to expand their rights and remake Afghanistan would not survive the resurgent Taliban.

A female broadcaster in Afghanistan said she was hiding at a relative’s house, too frightened to return home much less return to work following reports that the insurgents are also looking for journalists. She said she and other women didn’t believe the Taliban had changed their ways. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

The Associated Press cited Mr. Samangani, the Taliban culture minister, as saying the Taliban is ready to “provide women with [an] environment to work and study, and the presence of women in different [government] structures according to Islamic law and in accordance with our cultural values.”

That would be a marked departure from the last time the Taliban were in power, when women were largely confined to their homes.

In another sign of the Taliban‘s efforts to portray a new image, a female television anchor on the private broadcaster Tolo interviewed a Taliban official on camera Tuesday in a studio â€" an interaction that once would have been unthinkable. Meanwhile, women in hijabs demonstrated briefly in Kabul, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, noted both the Taliban‘s vows and the fears of everyday Afghans.

“Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being â€" again understandably, given past history â€" these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he said in a statement. “There have been many hard-won advances in human rights over the past two decades. The rights of all Afghans must be defended.”

• Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.

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