Status: 08/26/2021 7:30 p.m.
The Bundeswehr has ended its evacuation mission in Kabul, and the last flights have left the Afghan capital. According to Defense Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer, all soldiers were flown out.
The German evacuation mission in the Afghan capital Kabul has ended. As Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said, the last aircraft took off from the airport. “All soldiers and members of the Foreign Office and the Federal Police” had been flown out of Kabul, according to the CDU politician.
This also applies to two Bundeswehr soldiers who should initially have been left behind. They were flown out with the hospital Airbus in the evening.
Two explosions at the airport
The airport had previously been rocked by two explosions in the vicinity of the site, several people were killed. According to the Bundeswehr, no German soldiers were injured. The attacks made it clear “that an extension of the operation in Kabul was not possible,” said Kramp-Karrenbauer. The security situation and the decision of the Taliban not to tolerate the military evacuations after August 31 would not make this possible.
According to the minister, the Bundeswehr has flown a total of 5,347 people, including more than 4,000 Afghans and around 500 Germans, via the airlift initially to Tashkent and in some cases further to Germany. Kramp-Karrenbauer said that even after the end of the evacuation operation, Germany would remain responsible for the people who could no longer be flown out. “For her, the end of this airlift is the moment of greatest concern,” she said. Your acceptance letters remained valid.
Merkel: “Vile attack”
Chancellor Angela Merkel said with a view to the explosions that one or more suicide attacks are expected. “This is an absolutely vile attack,” she said. Merkel also emphasized that the people who could no longer be brought to safety with the airlift will not be forgotten. “We will continue to try to get you to leave the country.”
Press conference by Chancellor Angela Merkel on the attacks in Kabul
tagesschau24 6:00 p.m., August 26, 2021
Warnings of terrorist attacks
Recently there had been more and more warnings of terrorist attacks at the airport in Kabul. The Bundeswehr had already reported on Tuesday that an increasing number of potential suicide bombers from the terrorist organization Islamic State were in Kabul.
US President Joe Biden had made a similar statement. A local branch of IS tries to attack the airport practically every day, he said. The terrorist militia is also a “declared enemy” of the Taliban. Among other things, Biden justified his adherence to the plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by August 31 with this terror threat.