At least four evacuee flights stuck at airport for days as Taliban prevent take off

While the reason is yet to be ascertained, the Republican have called it a hostage situation and airport officials have said many of the evacuees do not have the right documents Kabul : At least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people seeking to escape the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have been unable to leave the country for days, officials have said, with conflicting accounts emerging about why the flights weren’t able to take off as pressure ramps up on the United States to help those left behind to flee. An Afghan official at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif said the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave the country. The final days of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan were marked by a harrowing airlift at Kabul’s airport to evacuate tens of thousands of people — Americans and their allies — who feared what the future would hold, given the Taliban’s history of repression, particularly of women. Searing images of that chaotic evacuation — including people clinging to an airplane as it took off — came to define the final days of America’s longest war, just weeks after Taliban fighters retook the country in a lightning offensive.