Politico:
POLITICO’s Lara Seligman and Alex Thompson say the Taliban yesterday began halting people trying to get through the airport gates, including both Afghans and American citizens:
“The situation is becoming increasingly dire for those who have not yet been able to get out. American citizens are routinely being turned away by Afghan guards at the airport despite showing U.S. passports, according to five sources familiar with the situation.
“In one instance, a guard told a group to leave the area or he would shoot them. In another, an Afghan interpreter and his family were beaten by Afghan guards after being rejected at the gates, and are now sleeping in their car because the Taliban burned down their house.”
This flies in the face of everything Biden and Johnson said following the G7 call and leaves it hard not to conclude that Western leaders’ policy on Afghanistan is well out of step with the reality in Kabul.
In Washington, the Biden administration is being
accused of “gaslighting” the public over the situation at the airport. A former State Department official tells my POLITICO U.S. colleagues: “I don’t think the president’s rhetoric matches the conditions on the ground.”…..