Fire Fight at Kabul Airport as Security Situation Deteriorates

A gunbattle broke out early Monday at Kabul’s airport, killing at least one Afghan soldier, with the security situation deteriorating as the U.S. and its Western allies consider extending an evacuation operation that has been engulfed in chaos for more than a week.

Afghan, American and German soldiers were involved in an exchange of fire early Monday that left one Afghan soldier dead and three more wounded, German military officials said.

The circumstances remained unclear, including who opened fire, said the officials. Some remnants of the Afghan army that didn’t surrender when the Taliban swept through the country this month are working with international troops to provide security around the perimeter of the U.S.-controlled airport.

No injuries to American and German soldiers were reported.

The fire fight underscored the challenges facing the U.S. and its partners in Afghanistan as the Biden administration considers whether to extend the evacuation program past a deadline it has set for Aug. 31. It has pledged to end those efforts and withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by then.

The Taliban seized Kabul on Aug. 15, following a rapid-fire conquest of most of the rest of the country. That has driven Westerners, along with thousands of Afghans who assisted them over the course of two decades, to seek to flee the country via evacuation flights the U.S. and its allies have organized over the past week.

The Taliban have surrounded the airport, setting up checkpoints and patrols on the road leading to it. Thousands of people have thronged the airport, with some people crushed and killed in stampedes. There are almost 6,000 American troops at the airport, along with thousands more from allied countries.

On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned citizens to avoid traveling to the airport due to threats outside the gates. A group of Indian travelers was briefly detained by the Taliban on Saturday when trying to enter the airport.

Western officials have acknowledged that they are unlikely to extract all of the tens of thousands of Afghans they want to take to safety by Aug. 31.

President Biden said Sunday that his administration might extend that deadline, as the Pentagon enlisted the help of U.S. airlines to evacuate Americans and Afghan partners from the country.

“There’s discussions going on among us and the military about extending” the deadline, Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “Our hope is that we will not have to extend. But there are going to be discussions, I expect, about how far along we are in the process.”

Six airlines are contributing 18 planes to help with the evacuation in compliance with a government order. Officials said the commercial aircraft wouldn’t fly in and out of Kabul, the Afghan capital, but would ferry evacuees to the U.S. from bases in Germany, Qatar and Bahrain to ease transport bottlenecks. That will allow the U.S. military to bring in more evacuees from Kabul.

In the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m. Monday, 28 U.S. military flights evacuated about 10,400 people from Kabul, a White House official said. Another roughly 5,900 people were evacuated by U.S. coalition allies.

The U.S. has helped evacuate more than 37,000 people since the airlift operation began on Aug. 14, the White House said.

The Taliban is pushing for the evacuation operation at the airport to end as soon as possible. The group believes that images of Afghans desperately trying to flee their rule are damaging at a time when they are seeking to prove that their administration will be less harsh than when they were in power in the 1990s. The Taliban have criticized the chaos at the airport, blaming the U.S. and its partners for it.

Separately, the Taliban are fighting a nascent resistance movement, which emerged in recent days, with more clashes taking place overnight in the northern half of the country.

The Group of Seven advanced economies will meet Tuesday over the crisis in Afghanistan. The group will discuss the possibility of extending the Aug. 31 deadline.

“It is vital that the international community works together to ensure safe evacuations, prevent a humanitarian crisis and support the Afghan people to secure the gains of the last 20 years,” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter on Sunday.