Emmanuel Macron has vowed a 'robust, coordinated and united' European response to stop Afghan migrants heading to the West and w...
Emmanuel Macron has vowed a 'robust, coordinated and united' European response to stop Afghan migrants heading to the West and warned that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is on course to become a 'sanctuary' for terrorists and people-smugglers unless action is taken.
In a television broadcast from his holiday home in the South of France, the French President said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after the 20-year Western intervention had far-reaching consequences for other countries - and would need to work together to manage the change.
'This is key for international security and peace,' Mr Macron said on Monday night. 'We will do everything for Russia, the United States and Europe to co-operate efficiently as our interests are the same'.
Mr Macron also urged the United Nations Security Council - of which France is a permanent member - to produce a 'reasonable and unified' response to the crisis engulfing Afghanistan and the wider region.
The French President said the European Union would now be trying to regulate the vastly increased refugee flow from Afghanistan, which has a population of almost 40,000. He said France would be cracking down on 'illegal people smuggling rings', along with Germany and other EU countries.
Mr Macron said: 'We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows that would endanger the migrants and risk encouraging trafficking of all kinds.'
He said some 800 Afghans including translators and cooks who worked for France had already been evacuated to his country And the President added that France was ready to help activists, artists and journalists who risk being targeted because of their work.
'We will help them as it is the honour of France to be side-by-side with those who share our values,' he said.
Speaking from the Fort de Bregancon presidential summer residence, Mr Macron said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Boris Johnson - who is chairing a remote G7 summit later this week - and 'joint initiatives' were already underway in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.
Afghanistan was originally invaded by US-led coalition forces after the September 11, 2001 attacks because the Taliban was allowing terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda to operate within its territory.
An image shot in Paris off a television screen shows French President Emmanuel Macron speaking on the situation in Afghanistan, from the Fort de Bregancon presidential summer residence at Bormes-les-Mimosas
Thousands of Afghans rush to the Hamid Karzai International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul
Taliban members are seen near Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands of Afghans rush to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul
In a television broadcast from his holiday home in the South of France, Mr Macron said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after the 20-year Western intervention had far-reaching consequences for other countries - and would need to work together to manage the change
President Joe Biden speaks about Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House
'Our actions will above all be aimed at fighting actively against Islamist terrorism in all its forms,' Mr Macron added. 'Terrorist groups are present in Afghanistan and seek to profit from the instability.'
Addressing mounting reports of Taliban attacks on women and girls, Mr Macron said: 'Afghan women have the right to live in freedom and dignity. We will say very clearly to those who opt for war, obscurantism and blind violence that they have chosen isolation.'
Kabul airport will reopen on Tuesday, US officials have vowed, as extra security is drafted in to manage the evacuation of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans trying to escape Taliban rule amid mounting fears that Islamic State could commit a terror atrocity in the country.
Joe Biden defended the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, two decades after NATO forces invaded the country and toppled the Taliban regime following the September 11, 2001 attacks, as he blamed Donald Trump and the Afghan security services for the anarchy engulfing the country.
Speaking from the White House, the US President - who had returned from his 'vacation' at Camp David - told the American nation that the Taliban's astonishing sweep to power and seizure of the capital city Kabul this month had happened 'more quickly' than he had anticipated.
His address came as Americans woke up to images of terrified Afghans plummeting from the engines of an airborne US Air Force C-17 jet above Hamid Karzai International Airport, as hundreds of other desperate locals attempted to escape the theocratic rule of the Taliban.
The airport was forced to close and evacuation flights halted after at least eight people were killed, including two shot dead by US troops, three run over by taxiing planes and the three who fell hundreds of feet.
But in a push to secure the airport, Britain and the US deployed another 200 and 1,000 soldiers respectively on Monday. The deployments take the totals to around 900 and 6,000 respectively, with many troops expected to be on patrols to help keeping the capital's airport safe.
It is understood there are growing Anglo-US concerns that Islamists could exploit security lapses at the airport with suicide bombings - with the risk of an attack by the Khorasan Province wing of Islamic State great enough for it to be discussed at Monday's emergency Cobra meeting in Downing Street. The issue has also been raised in Ministry of Defence planning meetings, the Telegraph reported.
Speaking about the clashes at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, one defence source told the paper: 'If you are in the Pentagon or the MoD you are looking at the scenes and thinking: 'That is a tragic loss of life, but what if that was an IS-KP suicide bomber?''
Three stowaways fell hundreds of feet to their deaths after climbing onto the fuselage of a departing US Air Force C-17 plane as it took off from at Hamid Karzai International Airport, while hundreds of other desperate people tried to cling onto planes as they taxied down the runway.
Senior US military officials said troops shot and killed two armed Afghans among those trying to get onto the jet while US citizens were evacuated in two separate incidents. A further three people were caught under plane wheels amid scenes of anarchy as the country slips into Taliban control.
A Pentagon official said that US troops had come under fire at the airfield and grounded all flights while soldiers cleared the airfield with Apache helicopters and fired 'warning shots' to disperse the crowds. Flights resumed after 90 minutes but were suspended again after a security breach on the civilian side of the airport, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
Thousands of terrified people descended on Hamid Karzai International Airport as the US, Britain and other Western countries evacuate their citizens and diplomats on military aircraft following the Taliban's seizure of the capital city Kabul and much of Afghanistan this week.
Video posted on Twitter shows hundreds of people running alongside a C-17 crammed with 800 people - eight times its usual capacity - with many clambering on to the front and rear wheels, while others climbed airbridges hoping to force their way on to planes waiting at the departure gates.
The clip then shows three people falling to their deaths from hundreds of feet in the air, with images posted online later appearing to show residents collecting bodies from a rooftop in Kabul.
The C-17 can carry 171,000 pounds of cargo but its interior is designed to carry fewer than 150 soldiers. It is unclear who exactly was on board and how many Americans remain on the ground. However, a flight-tracker showed the jet was flown to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The first of three German evacuation planes en route to Afghanistan diverted to the Uzbek capital Tashkent after it could not land at Kabul airport, a German general said on Monday.
The A400M transport plane circled for more than an hour over Kabul before changing its destination, Lieutenant General Markus Laubenthal told public broadcaster ZDF. A foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier in Berlin that no evacuation flights were leaving Kabul because people were blocking the runway.
A Pentagon spokesperson said 3,000 soldiers would be on the ground at the airport by Tuesday to help with the evacuation efforts, with a further 3,000 troops arriving later this week. However, the shambolic scenes further humiliated the US and its NATO powers, with much of the Anglo-US media and political class branding the withdrawal the 'biggest foreign policy disaster' since Suez.
Taliban fighters are seen on the back of a vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan
An Afghan family rushes to the Hamid Karzai International Airport as they flee the Afghan capital of Kabul
Image of British citizens and dual nationals residing in Afghanistan being evacuated to the UK
US media said the 'debacle of the US defeat and chaotic retreat in Afghanistan' was a 'political disaster' and slammed the President's 'failure to orchestrate an urgent and orderly exit'.
A New York Post editorial even said his claims that he 'inherited' Trump's withdrawal plans were a 'lie' and branded the crisis situation 'as humiliating an end as the rooftop scramble in Saigon in 1975'.
The head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, Armin Laschet, called it the 'biggest NATO debacle' since the founding of the alliance, while MPs accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of a 'shameful' silence and questioned if he did enough to discourage President Biden from withdrawing US troops.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was 'concerned' by accounts of human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a return to the darkest days' of the 1990s when the Taliban came to power after the Civil War and imposed a brutal theocracy.
Afghanistan's representative to the UN Security Ghulam Isaczai told a meeting of the five powers - the US, Britain, China, Russia and France - on Monday that 'there are already reports of target killings and looting in the city'. 'Kabul residents are reported that the Taliban have already started house-to-house searches in some neighbourhoods, registering names and looking for people in their target list,' he added.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has also come under fire from critics and political rivals for hightailing out of the country as the Taliban stormed the Presidential Palace on Sunday night.
The Russian Embassy claimed that he had fled in a helicopter full of cash. His whereabouts remain unknown.
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