Bundeswehr evacuation mission: the airlift is likely to end earlier

The US plan to end the evacuation mission at Kabul airport by August 31 also has consequences for the German armed forces. Your Tashkent-Kabul-Tashkent evacuation flights could end earlier than previously assumed.

In view of the imminent withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr could end its evacuation flights this week. According to information from ARD and other security media, this could be the case on Friday or Saturday.

the ARD correspondent Isabel Schayaniwho is currently reporting from Tashkent said tagesschau.de, that an end could possibly come even sooner:

The German evacuation flights could possibly end today or tomorrow. This is what it is called here in Tashkent, where the airlift hub is. This means the flights that people fly out of Kabul.

The decision as to when the last plane will fly to Kabul depends on the security situation in Kabul and how politicians decide. This could be a short term decision, flight to flight. Nobody wants to take the risk that the withdrawal will not proceed peacefully, it is said here in Tashkent.

In the daily News Schayani also pointed out that the Bundeswehr had to fly out its people and equipment, needed time for this and was careful not to let the situation on the ground escalate.

“Perform the operation as long as possible”

A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense said he could “neither confirm nor deny” reports on a possible point in time.

Union foreign politicians kept a low profile on a date for the end of the rescue mission. Neither the chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Foreign Affairs Committee, Roderich Kiesewetter, nor the foreign policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Jürgen Hardt, wanted to join the ARD comment on a date. “It remains our goal to carry out this operation as long as possible in order to evacuate as many people as possible in the direction of Uzbekistan,” said Hardt in the SWR.

Chancellor Angela Merkel made a similar statement in consultations with the CDU and CSU faction, as reported by the Reuters news agency, citing groups of participants. “As long as it is responsible, we will evacuate people,” the agency quoted the Chancellor as saying. However, Merkel had admitted that this was only possible with the support of the USA.

All machines that bring people from Kabul to Germany land in Tashkent. Germany set up the airlift after the Taliban came to power. Bundeswehr aircraft have been flying between Kabul and Tashkent since August 16.

Wüstner: “Currently we can’t help everyone”

The pressure on the German Armed Forces is also growing due to the US sticking to the specially set withdrawal date from the airport in Kabul: August 31. During the night, the US military announced that they had withdrawn “several hundred” soldiers who had secured the site. According to the US Department of Defense, however, these are initially employees of the headquarters, specialists in maintenance work and other soldiers whose mission at the airport has been completed. The allies rely on US forces to secure the airport.

“That will increase the pressure again,” said the chairman of the Bundeswehr Association, André Wüstner, in the joint morning magazine of ARD and ZDF. He also pointed out that other terrorist groups were also increasingly active in the capital, which had been taken over by the militant Islamic Taliban. They would try to “draw attention to yourself again,” he said.

Wüstner admitted that the Bundeswehr was also planning options for a quick withdrawal. She must now see that she is bringing out as many local German helpers with their relatives as possible via the airport and that the soldiers will come back safely. Then you have to see that you can bring people out overland, for example across the northern border. At the same time, Wüstner also made it clear: “We know that we can’t help everyone at the moment.” All promises will not be able to be kept.

Bundeswehr flies out more than 4,600 people

Wüstner called for lessons to be learned “from this fiasco”. Europe is not able to act. Without the USA behind him, “German politics, European politics, just observers of great and tragic events”. In the next government you have to think about how you can develop your own military options for action. “And of course that also means finally turning words into deeds and empowering the military accordingly.”

According to the Federal Ministry of Defense, the Bundeswehr has been able to fly more than 4,600 vulnerable people from Afghanistan on 31 flights since the start of the rescue mission. On Tuesday alone, 983 people were brought to Tashkent.