美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯周三呼吁塔利班允许包机离开阿富汗美国人和阿富汗人准备登机，但表示美国能做些什么来确保他们飞离是有“限制”的。
一个多星期以来，塔利班不允许至少六架包机离开，称一些撤离者没有离开的适当文件。对一些乘客来说，僵局变得非常可怕，一个援助组织组织了一群阿富汗妇女和女孩告诉美国广播公司新闻，局势“不受控制”和“不舒服”
这个激进组织公开表示，将允许试图离开该国的外国人安全通行。该组织周二公布了一个“临时”政府，其中包括已经受到美国和联合国制裁的几位最高领导人。
布林肯说，塔利班新内阁“肯定没有达到包容性的考验”，但只会说其高层成员有“非常具有挑战性的记录”
自美国军事和外交人员撤离阿富汗，结束了美国在阿富汗20年的战争以来的8天里，拜登政府一直在努力疏散美国公民和处境危险的阿富汗伙伴。
据参与组织这些活动的援助组织称，这包括在北部城市马扎里沙里夫的至少19名美国公民和数百名阿富汗人，那里的包机已经在机场等待了一周多。
“这些航班需要能够离开，美国政府、国务院——我们正在尽一切努力帮助实现这一目标，”布林肯周三在德国拉姆施泰因空军基地对记者说，他在那里会见了由美国领导的行动撤离的数千名阿富汗难民中的一些人，该行动于8月30日结束。
众议院外交事务委员会共和党高级代表麦克·麦克考尔周日表示，由于塔利班要求美国做出让步，这些航班被扣为“人质”，而一些倡导者指责美国没有批准这些航班。布林肯周三表示，目前的情况“相当混乱”——美国国务院官员表示，美国没有参与批准着陆权或飞越权，也没有尽其所能帮助包机获得批准。
“虽然没有地面人员，没有一个正常安全程序到位的机场，我们能做的事情是有限的，但我们正在尽一切努力支持这些航班，并让它们离开地面。这就是我们已经做的，这就是我们将继续做的，”布林肯和德国外交部长海科·马斯一起说。
美国国务院官员说，美国特使扎勒迈·哈利勒扎德一直在向塔利班领导人发出紧急信息，要求他们遵守安全通行的承诺，根据宣传团体提供的清单，美国迄今没有任何安全顾虑。
但总部位于美国的非营利组织Ascend的创始人兼执行董事玛丽娜·莱格里(Marina LeGree)指责国务院有时会碍事。
“我们已经给了你这些人的所有细节，你清除了他们，叫他们来，现在你说，‘你必须有旅行证件，如果你有，不要担心，你可以走了’?这是对责任的彻底放弃，这只是——这在道德上令人反感，”勒格雷周三告诉美国广播公司新闻。
她补充说，目前总共有1000多人在这些包机上寻求座位，这使得确保美国人和弱势阿富汗人能够首先安全撤离的努力复杂化，并降低了机场本身的条件，许多人已经在机场等待了几天。
往东南190英里，喀布尔的一些条件也在恶化。一名联合国高级官员星期三说，她的办公室每天都收到妇女权利被削减的报告，包括禁止她们不带男人离开家或去上班。
“随着昨天的宣布，塔利班错过了一个向世界展示真正致力于建设一个包容和繁荣社会的重要机会，”联合国妇女署驻阿富汗副代表艾莉森·达维迪安(Alison Davidian)说。联合国妇女署是该全球机构促进性别平等和增强妇女权能的实体。
这一宣布是组建一个“临时”政府，由塔利班指挥官领导，在20世纪90年代末统治阿富汗大部分地区的前政府中发挥了突出作用。
塔利班没有任命妇女担任任何职务，而是解散了美国支持的前政府妇女事务部，并恢复了其作为宗教执法力量的美德传播和预防邪恶部。
布林肯说，美国仍在“评估这一声明”，但表示担心部长名单“完全由塔利班成员及其亲密伙伴组成，没有女性”，有些人与基地组织和哈卡尼网络等其他恐怖组织有联系。
“它肯定没有达到包容性的考验，”他补充说，并指出一些人有“非常具有挑战性的记录。”
挑战是轻描淡写。例如，西拉杰丁·哈卡尼被任命为代理内政部长，负责国内事务。被制裁的哈卡尼网络的领导人对阿富汗各地无情的恐怖袭击负有责任，联邦调查局悬赏1000万美元缉拿他。
当被问及美国政府是否仍在追捕他时，布林肯没有直接回答这个问题，而是说，美国将与塔利班接触，“以促进美国及其盟友的国家利益”，并“以完全符合我们法律的方式”，包括美国对塔利班、哈卡尼网络以及哈卡尼本人和其他人的制裁。
正如他和其他美国官员一再表示的那样，布林肯重申，美国将“根据其行动”来评判新政府
但周二，一名阿富汗记者向他施压。在塔利班战士殴打女抗议者和报道反对她们的示威活动的记者、关闭媒体和搜查住宅等等之后，TOLO News的Lotfullah Najafizada问布林肯，“你还想看什么?”
布林肯说:“我们将通过它的行动来看它是否纠正了这些滥用行为事件中的任何一个。”。
Chartered evacuation flights 'need to move,' says Blinken, but US facing 'limits' in pressing Taliban
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called on the Taliban to allow chartered aircraft to departAfghanistanwith Americans and Afghans ready to board, but said there were "limits" to what the U.S. can do to ensure they fly out.
For over a week now, the Taliban have not permitted at least six chartered flights to leave, saying some evacuees do not have the proper documents to depart. The standoff is turning dire for some passengers, with one aid group organizing a group of Afghan women and girls telling ABC News the situation is "uncontrolled" and "uncomfortable."
The militant group, which has publicly said it will allow safe passage to foreigners trying to leave the country, unveiled an "interim" government on Tuesday that includes several top leaders already under U.S. and United Nations sanctions.
Blinken said the new Taliban cabinet "certainly does not meet the test of inclusivity," but would only say its top members had "very challenging track records."
The Biden administration has struggled to evacuate U.S. citizens and at-risk Afghan partners in the eight days since U.S. military and diplomatic personnel withdrew from the country, ending America's 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
That includes for at least 19 U.S. citizens and hundreds of Afghans in the northern city Mazar-e-Sharif, where chartered aircraft have been waiting at the airport for over a week now, according to aid groups involved in organizing them.
"Those flights need to be able to leave and the United States government, the State Department - we are doing everything we can to help make that happen," Blinken told reporters Wednesday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he met some of the thousands of Afghan refugees evacuated by the U.S.-led operation that ended on Aug. 30.
Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Sunday that the flights were being held "hostage" as the Taliban demanded concessions from the U.S., while some advocates blamed the U.S. for not clearing the flights. Blinken said Wednesday there was "a fair amount of confusion" about the situation -- with State Department officials saying the U.S. is not involved in approving landing or overflight rights and doing what it can to help the chartered flights get approvals.
"While there are limits to what we can do without personnel on the ground, without an airport with normal security procedures in place, we are doing everything in our power to support those flights and to get them off the ground. That's what we've done, that's what we'll continue to do," Blinken said alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
State Department officials said U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has been sending urgent messages to the Taliban's leadership to demand that they abide by their commitments on safe passage, and that the U.S. has so far no security concerns based on the manifests provided by advocacy groups.
But Marina LeGree, the founder and executive director of Ascend, a U.S.-based nonprofit seeking to empower Afghan women and girls through mountain climbing, blamed the State Department for standing in the way at times.
"We've given you all the details of these people and you cleared them and call them to come, and now you're saying, 'You have to have travel documents and don't worry if you do, you get to go'? That's a complete abdication of responsibility, and it's just - it's morally repugnant," LeGree told ABC News Wednesday.
In total, there are more than 1,000 people now seeking a seat on these chartered flights, she added, complicating efforts to ensure Americans and vulnerable Afghans can safely evacuate first and degrading conditions at the airport itself where many have been waiting for days.
One hundred and ninety miles to the southeast, some conditions in Kabul are deteriorating as well. A top U.N. official said Wednesday her office is receiving daily reports of women's rights being rolled back, including barring them from leaving home without a man or going to work.
"With the announcement yesterday, the Taliban have missed a critical opportunity to show the world that is truly committed to building an inclusive and prosperous society," said Alison Davidian, the deputy representative in Afghanistan for U.N. Women, the global agency's entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
That announcement is the formation of an "interim" government, led by Taliban commanders that played prominent roles in its previous government that ruled much of Afghanistan in the late 1990's.
Instead of naming a woman to any position, the Taliban also dissolved the previous U.S.-backed government's Ministry of Women's Affairs and reinstated its Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which acted as a religious enforcement force.
Blinken said the U.S. was still "assessing the announcement," but expressed concern that the list of ministers "consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban and their close associates and no women" and that some have ties to other terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network.
"It certainly does not meet the test of inclusivity," he added, noting some individuals have "very challenging track records."
Challenging is an understatement. Sirajuddin Haqqani, for example, has been put in charge of domestic affairs as acting Interior Minister. The leader of the sanctioned Haqqani Network, which is responsible for ruthless terror attacks across Afghanistan, he has a $10 million bounty on his head by the FBI.
Asked whether the U.S. government is still pursuing his capture, Blinken didn't directly address the question - instead saying the U.S. will engage the Taliban "for purposes of advancing the national interests" of the U.S. and its allies and "in ways that are fully consistent with our laws," including U.S. sanctions on the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Haqqani himself and others.
As he and other U.S. officials have said repeatedly, Blinken reiterated that the U.S. will judge the new government "by its action."
But he was pressed by an Afghan journalist Tuesday on that. After Taliban fighters have beaten female protesters and journalists covering demonstrations against them, shut down media outlets and raided homes, and more, TOLO News's Lotfullah Najafizada asked Blinken, "What else do you want to see?"
"We will see by its actions whether it corrects course on any of these incidents of abusive conduct," Blinken said.
