Status: 08/18/2021 11:36 a.m.
The cabinet has initiated the mandate for the evacuation operation of the Bundeswehr – the Bundestag is to vote next week. Another German machine with 176 people on board has left Kabul for Tashkent.
The Federal Cabinet has approved the mandate application for the German Armed Forces’ ongoing evacuation mission in Afghanistan. According to this, up to 600 soldiers can be deployed for the mission until September 30th at the latest. The costs are estimated at 40 million euros.
Vote in parliament in a week
The Bundestag is expected to vote on the mandate application next week. Parliament has to vote on every armed deployment of the Bundeswehr. In exceptional cases, this is also possible retrospectively. In this case, the subsequent vote is justified with “danger in arrears” in view of the difficult security situation in Afghanistan after the radical Islamic Taliban came to power.
The aim of the mission is the “military evacuation of German citizens from Afghanistan”. In addition, “within the framework of available capacities”, other foreigners “and other designated persons, including particularly vulnerable representatives of Afghan civil society” are to be flown out.
Omid Nouripour, Alliance 90 / The Greens parliamentary group, on the Federal Armed Forces mission in Afghanistan
tagesschau24 11:00 a.m., August 18, 2021
“The sending of armed German forces cannot be postponed,” said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in a letter accompanying the draft mandate. “Any further waiting until the German Bundestag has made a final decision could call the successful implementation of the German forces into question or at least make it much more difficult and thus also endanger the life and limb of the people to be protected.”
Another 176 people on the way to Tashkent
In the morning, another Bundeswehr aircraft with 176 people on board took off from Kabul in the direction of the Uzbek capital Tashkent. “Today’s first evacuation flight has just taken off with 176 people from #Kabul,” tweeted Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
On Tuesday evening, the Bundeswehr had flown 139 people out of the Afghan capital. “German, other European and Afghan citizens” were on board the third evacuation flight, according to a spokesman for the German Foreign Office. In the late evening, the A400M aircraft landed in Tashkent, the Bundeswehr operations command said on Twitter.
From there the people are to be brought to Germany by Lufthansa today. The operations command further announced that the evacuation flights were completed on Tuesday. Apparently, a flight could not take place. “The reason for this is the current lack of availability of the airport fire brigade in Kabul.” To compensate for this, a total of four flights to Kabul are planned for Wednesday.
From Tashkent to Germany
The people who had flown out, who had already arrived in Tashkent on Tuesday afternoon, landed in a Lufthansa aircraft of the type Airbus 340 at Frankfurt Airport in the early morning. According to information from the dpa news agency, around 130 people from Kabul were on board. The federal government had chartered the long-haul jet.
The first evacuated employees from the embassy in Kabul came to Germany on Tuesday afternoon. According to dpa information, they landed on a scheduled plane at Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport. On Monday night they were among the first 40 German citizens who had been flown to Doha in the Gulf emirate of Qatar on a US plane.
Evacuation from Afghanistan: 130 people arrive in Germany
Joscha Bartlitz, HR, daily news 9:00 a.m., August 18, 2021
In talks with Taliban representatives, the German government wants to find ways to leave the country for local workers in Afghanistan. The German ambassador in Kabul, Markus Potzel, had traveled to the Qatari capital Doha, where US representatives were in talks with Taliban representatives, Maas said. In his talks in Doha, the diplomat wants to work towards “ensuring that local staff can also go to the airport and be flown out.”
Cooperation with the USA
Foreign machines, such as US planes, should also continue to be used to bring Germans to safety. Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said that should a permanent airlift, in coordination with the US government, for example, be made, more transport capacities could be made available.
Currently, it is mainly US soldiers who are securing the airport in Kabul. According to the White House, around 3,500 soldiers are now deployed there. The Department of Defense in Washington said the number would rise to around 4,000 during the day. In a few days there should be up to 6,000 soldiers.
The US military has flown more than 3,200 people from Afghanistan to date. On Tuesday alone, around 1,100 people were brought to safety with 13 flights, said a representative of the White House, who wanted to remain anonymous.
Looking for more helpers
The federal government is still looking for Afghan helpers who have not yet been able to leave the country. According to Chancellor Angela Merkel, a large number of the local armed forces and police are already in Germany. Now they are trying to establish contact with around 1,000 local staff in the field of development cooperation, some of whom are not in Kabul. In addition, there are helpers from non-governmental organizations.
The reason why these were initially not on the list of those to be evacuated was the assumption that development cooperation could initially be continued after the withdrawal of the military, said Merkel. This is no longer possible.