Some 18,000 People Have Been Evacuated from Afghanistan since Taliban Takeover

Over 18,000 people were evacuated from Kabul airport since the Taliban took over the main Afghanistan city, a NATO official said. Taliban militants controlling access to the airport have fired shots into the air to disperse approaching crowds, BBC reported. Only in the past 24 hours some 5,000 people managed to escape through the airport, which is being run by specially deployed US troops.

Taliban fighters deployed around the airport are reportedly not permitting Afghans without documents to enter. They are, however, allowing entry to people with American passports, according to US officials. The hardline Islamist group's dramatic takeover of Kabul on Sunday took many Western governments by surprise. Crowds continued to gather outside the airport, desperate to flee, said the NATO official, who declined to be identified. “We have an obligation to get as many people out of Afghanistan as we can," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the US was aiming to increase its evacuation capacity to more than 5,000 people a day. About 11,000 US citizens remain in the country, AFP news agency reports. France, Germany, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic all said they had successfully evacuated some of their citizens as well as Afghans. Some 700 British nationals and Afghans were airlifted out on Tuesday and the UK was "trying to scale up the speed and pace over the next couple of days", UK Ambassador Laurie Bristow said.