Taliban fighters stand guard outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul as thousands flee the country.
Photo / Associated Press
Taliban fighters stand guard outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul as thousands flee the country.
Photo / Associated Press
Kabul-born Northlanders are optimistic a group that calls itself Taliban is able to work with other tribes in Afghanistan towards long-term peace in the war-torn country.
As Afghanistan plunged into chaos following the withdrawal of foreign troops that ended a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking the country, the Taliban took control of much of the nation while its embattled president Ashraf Ghani fled to an unknown country.
At least seven people died at Kabul Airport, including those who fell from a departing American military transport jet, as thousands tried to flee.
Shortly after the scenes from the runway emerged, footage showing Afghans clamouring onto the side of the C-17 and clinging on to its undercarriage as it struggled down the tarmac.
The sisters, together with five other siblings and their parents, went to Pakistan as refugees when they were in their pre-teens before moving to New Zealand in 2001 on the basis of family sponsorship.
“We want the Taliban, who call themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, to work together with all the other tribal leaders to help rebuild the country,” they said.
They have little recollection of their upbringing in Kabul but one incident their parents relayed to them is etched in their minds.
During the civil war in the 1990s, the family desperately tried to flee the city during an explosion.
“Mum and Dad, with all their kids, were standing there helpless when finally this Afghani soldier from Hazara tribe, he stopped the traffic, and got a taxi driver and said you need to get these people to safety,” they said.
"The taxi driver said 'no my own life is in danger, I need to get out of here' but the soldier said 'you need to fit all in and get them out'."
"Within the next five minutes, there was an explosion right where we were so if it wasn't for that Hazara soldier, we wouldn't have been here.
"That's an entire family — Mum and Dad and seven kids — two generations there."
On the latest scenes playing out in Afghanistan, they called on the Taliban to be given a chance based on the undertakings they have given thus far.
"They went to different provinces, they took them one by one, didn't harm anyone, left their details saying should you witness any threat from anyone in our organisation, or should you have a personal problem, or an emergency give us a call and we will solve it.
"They've also sent statements that we don't seem to talk about, about preserving women's rights, allowing them to go to school, not being a threat to anyone's personal properties.
Hundreds of people run alongside a U.S. Air Force in Kabul, desperate to flee the country.
Photo / Associated Press
Based on those undertakings, what else can we do other than take their word for it?"
The Northlanders said Afghanistan had been invaded, time after time, and puppet regimes put in place that had not had the welfare of the people at heart.
On the presence of American troops, she said: “It was an invasion, they came into the country, they gave us false hopes and promises on what their agenda was, how long they’ll stay there for, what their long-term plan was, they kept giving us deadlines that they wouldn’t meet.
"Finally, they decided 'you know what, we gonna leave, this will lead into a civil war but that's okay because we can't stand here and wait for the people to sort themselves out'.''
They said people in the Afghanistan Army have nothing real to fight for and that was why when the Taliban moved in, locals just surrendered because they knew they didn’t want to fight for an unpopular government.
The sisters have family and friends in different parts of Afghanistan but they are safe for the moment.
Late yesterday Britain and other European nations said they will not recognise any government formed by the Taliban and want the West to work together on a common stance.
NATO countries were left with little choice but to pull out the roughly 7000 non-American forces in Afghanistan after President Joe Biden announced in April that he was ending the US involvement in the war by September, 20 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
