阿富汗喀布尔——一名美国高级官员周六表示，潜在的伊斯兰国对在阿富汗的美国人的威胁正迫使美国军方开发新的方法，将撤离者运送到喀布尔机场，这给阿富汗迅速落入塔利班手中后本已混乱的人员撤离努力增加了新的复杂性。
这位官员说，将向一小批美国人，可能还有其他平民发出具体的指示，告诉他们该怎么做，包括转移到军事集结的中转站。这位不愿透露姓名的官员谈到了军事行动。
这些变化发生之际，美国大使馆周六发布了一项新的安全警告，告诉公民在没有美国政府代表单独指示的情况下，不要前往喀布尔机场。官员们拒绝提供更多关于信息系统威胁的细节，但称其意义重大。他们说目前还没有确认的袭击。
总统的时间不多了乔·拜登美国8月31日撤出大部分剩余美军的最后期限。在他周五对局势的评论中，他没有承诺延长停火，尽管他确实发布了一项新的承诺，不仅要撤离在阿富汗的所有美国人，还要撤离自2001年9月11日以来帮助战争的数万名阿富汗人。这一承诺将大幅增加美国撤离的人数。
随着视频描绘机场外的混乱和偶尔的暴力，以及害怕塔利班报复的脆弱的阿富汗人发出不要被落下的绝望呼吁，拜登面临着越来越多的批评。
伊斯兰国组织——长期以来一直宣称希望攻击美国和美国在海外的利益——多年来一直活跃在阿富汗，实施了一波又一波可怕的攻击，主要针对什叶派少数民族。该组织近年来多次成为美国空袭以及塔利班袭击的目标。但官员们表示，该组织的部分成员仍活跃在阿富汗，随着该国处于分裂的塔利班统治之下，美国担心该组织会进行更大规模的重组。
尽管美国大使馆发出警告，人群仍停留在喀布尔机场的混凝土屏障外，手里拿着文件，有时还有看起来惊呆了的孩子，他们被一圈圈铁丝网挡住了去路。
与此同时，塔利班最高政治领导人抵达喀布尔，就组建新政府进行会谈。本周早些时候从卡塔尔返回坎大哈的毛拉·阿卜杜勒·加尼·毛拉·阿卜杜勒·加尼·巴拉达尔的出现得到了一名塔利班官员的证实，这名官员要求匿名，因为他没有被授权与新闻媒体交谈。毛拉·阿卜杜勒·加尼·巴拉达尔与美国就宗教运动2020年的和平协议进行了谈判，现在预计他将在塔利班与被该激进组织推翻的阿富汗政府官员之间的谈判中发挥关键作用。
熟悉在首都举行的会谈的阿富汗官员说，塔利班已经表示，在8月31日撤军最后期限过去之前，他们不会宣布他们的政府。
被罢黜政府的高级官员阿卜杜拉·阿卜杜拉(Abdullah Abdullah)在推特上说，他和前总统哈米德·卡尔扎伊(Hamid Karzai)周六会见了塔利班负责喀布尔的代理省长，后者“向我们保证，他将尽一切可能保护该市人民的安全”。
疏散仍在继续，尽管由于机场混乱，一些出发航班远未满员。德国军方在推特上说，周六一架飞机载着205名撤离者离开喀布尔，而第二架飞机只载有20人。意大利国防部周六宣布撤离211名阿富汗人，称这使意大利使团的阿富汗工人及其家人安全撤离的人数达到2100人。
周五，英国首相鲍里斯·约翰逊表示，在机场“稳定”的情况下，每天约有1000人被疏散。但是在周六，一位前皇家海军陆战队出身的慈善总监在阿富汗表示，情况正在变得更糟，而不是更好。
“我们不能离开这个国家，因为我们不能在不危及生命的情况下进入机场，”保罗·法兴告诉英国广播公司电台。
美国陆军少将汉克·泰勒(Hank Taylor)周六告诉五角大楼记者，自8月15日以来，美国已经通过喀布尔机场疏散了1.7万人。他说，大约2500人是美国人。美国官员估计在阿富汗有多达15，000名美国人，但承认他们没有确切的数字。泰勒说，在过去的一天里，大约3800名平民通过美国军队和包机从阿富汗撤离。阿富汗撤离人员的三架飞机已经抵达华盛顿特区外的杜勒斯国际机场
撤离工作因安检和后勤紧张而受阻，比如卡塔尔的乌代德空军基地。美国官员表示，他们的筛查人员数量有限，他们正在努力克服审查系统中的故障。
泰勒说，喀布尔机场仍然开放，如果美国人到达登机口，他们将继续接受检查，但他和五角大楼发言人约翰·柯比说，威胁画面会随着时间的推移而改变。
“我们知道我们在与时间和空间作斗争，”柯比说。“这就是我们现在正在进行的比赛。”
美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯说，到目前为止，13个国家已经同意至少暂时接纳处境危险的阿富汗人。另有12个国家同意作为撤离者的中转站，包括美国人和其他人。
“我们累了。我们很幸福。我们现在在一个安全的国家，”一名阿富汗男子在与79名同胞抵达意大利时，在该国国防部分发的视频中说。
但对许多其他阿富汗人来说，越来越大的问题是，他们最终会在哪里打电话回家?害怕2015年移民危机重演的欧洲领导人已经发出信号，战争期间没有帮助西方军队的逃离阿富汗人应该留在邻国。
留在阿富汗意味着适应塔利班统治下的生活，塔利班称他们寻求一个“包容的、伊斯兰的”政府，将对那些为美国和西方支持的政府工作的人进行全面大赦，这些人自1996年至2001年最后一次掌权以来变得更加温和。他们还说——没有详细说明——他们将在伊斯兰法律的规范内尊重妇女的权利。
但许多阿富汗人担心会回到塔利班在20世纪90年代末的严酷统治，当时该组织禁止妇女上学或外出工作，禁止电视和音乐，砍掉可疑小偷的手，并公开处决。
“今天，我的一些朋友去法院工作，塔利班不让他们进入办公室。周六，喀布尔的一名妇女活动人士告诉美联社，她们拿出枪说，‘如果你在过去的政府中工作，你就没有资格在这个政府中工作’。她不愿透露姓名，以免遭到报复。
这位激进分子持有土耳其签证，但无法安全抵达机场，他形容塔利班言行之间的差距“非常惊人”
IS threat forces US changes to evacuations at Kabul airport
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior U.S. official said Saturday, adding a new complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its swift fall to the Taliban.
The official said that small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians will be given specific instructions on what to do, including movement to transit points where they can be gathered up by the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
The changes come as the U.S. Embassy issued a new security warning Saturday telling citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without individual instruction from a U.S. government representative. Officials declined to provide more specifics about the IS threat but described it as significant. They said there have beenno confirmed attacks as yet.
Time is running out ahead of PresidentJoe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw most remaining U.S. troops. In his remarks on the situation Friday, he did not commit to extending it, though he did issue a new pledge to evacuate not only all Americans in Afghanistan, but also the tens of thousands of Afghans who have aided the war effort since Sept. 11, 2001. That promise would dramatically expand the number of people the U.S. evacuates.
Biden faces growing criticism as videos depict pandemonium and occasional violence outside the airport, and as vulnerable Afghans who fear the Taliban's retaliation send desperate pleas not to be left behind.
The Islamic State group — which has long declared a desire to attack America and U.S. interests abroad — has been active in Afghanistan for a number of years, carrying out waves of horrific attacks, mostly on the Shiite minority. The group has been repeatedly targeted by U.S. airstrikes in recent years, as well as Taliban attacks. But officials say fragments of the group are still active in Afghanistan, and the U.S. is concerned about it reconstituting in a larger way as the country comes under divisive Taliban rule.
Despite the U.S. Embassy warning, crowds remain outside the Kabul airport's concrete barriers, clutching documents and sometimes stunned-looking children, blocked from flight by coils of razor wire.
Meanwhile, the Taliban's top political leader arrived in Kabul for talks on forming a new government. The presence of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who returned to Kandahar earlier this week from Qatar, was confirmed by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media. Baradar negotiated the religious movement’s 2020 peace deal with the U.S., and he is now expected to play a key role in negotiations between the Taliban and officials from the Afghan government that the militant group deposed.
Afghan officials familiar with talks held in the capital say the Taliban have said they will not make announcements on their government until the Aug. 31 deadline for the troop withdrawal passes.
Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, tweeted that he and ex-President Hamid Karzai met Saturday with Taliban’s acting governor for Kabul, who “assured us that he would do everything possible for the security of the people” of the city.
Evacuations continued, though some outgoing flights were far from full because of the airport chaos. The German military said in a tweet that one plane left Kabul on Saturday with 205 evacuees, while a second aircraft carried only 20. The Italian Defense Ministry announced the evacuation Saturday of 211 Afghans, which it said brought to 2,100 the number of Afghan workers at Italian missions and their families who have been safely evacuated.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said around 1,000 people a day were being evacuated amid a “stabilization” at the airport. But on Saturday, a former Royal Marine-turned charity director in Afghanistan said the situation was getting worse, not better.
“We can’t leave the country because we can’t get into the airport without putting our lives at risk,” Paul Farthing told BBC radio.
Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told Pentagon reporters Saturday that the U.S. has evacuated 17,000 people through the Kabul airport since Aug. 15. About 2,500 have been Americans, he said. U.S. officials have estimated there are as many as 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but acknowledge they don’t have solid numbers. In the past day, about 3,800 civilians were evacuated from Afghanistan through a combination of U.S. military and charter flights, Taylor said. Three flights of Afghan evacuees have arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.
The evacuations have been hampered by screening and logistical strains at way stations such as al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. U.S. officials said they have limited numbers of screeners, and they are struggling to work through glitches in the vetting systems.
Taylor said that the Kabul airport remains open, and that Americans continue to be processed if they get to the gates, but he and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the threat picture changes by the hour.
“We know that we’re fighting against both time and space,” Kirby said. “That’s the race we’re in right now.”
So far, 13 countries have agreed to host at-risk Afghans at least temporarily, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Another 12 have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.
“We are tired. We are happy. We are now in a safe country,” one Afghan man said upon arrival in Italy with 79 fellow citizens, speaking in a video distributed by that country's defense ministry.
But the growing question for many other Afghans is, where will they finally call home? Already, European leaders who fear a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis are signaling that fleeing Afghans who didn’t help Western forces during the war should stay in neighboring countries instead.
Remaining in Afghanistan means adapting to life under the Taliban, who say they seek an “inclusive, Islamic” government, will offer full amnesty to those who worked for the U.S. and the Western-backed government and have become more moderate since they last held power from 1996 to 2001. They also have said — without elaborating — that they will honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law.
But many Afghans fear a return to the Taliban’s harsh rule in the late 1990s, when the group barred women from attending school or working outside the home, banned television and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.
“Today, some of my friends went to work at the court and the Taliban didn't let them into their offices. They showed their guns and said, ‘You’re not eligible to work in this government if you worked in the past one,'” one women's activist in Kabul told The Associated Press on Saturday. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
With a Turkish visa but no way to safely reach the airport, the activist described the gap between the Taliban's words and actions “very alarming.”
