The Taliban kept their promise to continue evacuations from Afghanistan after the US withdrawal at the end of August.

A Qatar Airways plane, evacuating 113 people, including Americans, Canadians and Dutch, took off Thursday, September 9 from Kabul airport for Doha. 

This is the first flight of this type since the gigantic airlift organized by the Americans, which evacuated more than 123,000 people.

Among the passengers, an Afghan-American told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that he had been informed at the last minute by the US State Department: "They called me this morning and told me to go to the airport ", he testifies, before boarding with his family.

After the departure formalities at the airport, the passengers boarded buses on the tarmac and then reached the plane, under the surveillance of guards from Qatar.

The gradual reopening of Kabul airport

Doha is very involved in this operation as in the relaunch of the Kabul airport, which closed after the American withdrawal and is still slow to reopen to commercial flights.

Qatar and its ally Turkey have been working for several days to prepare Kabul airport structures for a gradual reopening.

A complicated task, as the airport suffered from the chaotic evacuations at the end of August, carried out when thousands of Afghans laid siege to the enclosure in the hope of boarding one of the flights chartered by foreign countries.

"A first positive step" for Washington

Washington recognizes that there are still many Afghans who are threatened by working with the former government or Western countries to be exfiltrated.

This flight is then "a first positive step".

The Taliban "have shown flexibility and have been professional in our dealings with them in this effort," the White House said Thursday.

They "have been cooperative in making possible the departure of US citizens and lawful permanent residents" to the United States.

The Taliban had assured that any Afghan or foreigner with proper documentation could take a commercial flight as soon as they were resumed.

"We hope that in the near future the airport will be ready for all kinds of commercial flights," government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Assassinations perpetrated

On the other hand, other promises have not been kept.

The United Nations (UN) envoy to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, told the Security Council on Thursday that the Taliban had carried out assassinations since their return to power, despite their promise of amnesty.

"There are credible allegations of retaliatory killings of members of the security forces and detention of officials who worked for previous governments," she said.

The Islamists are working to consolidate their power, a few days before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the starting point of the Western invasion of the country which ousted the Taliban from power.

With AFP

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