A US cargo plane has safely transported a group of 640 Afghan refugees out of Hamid Karzai international airport in Kabul.
The pilot of the US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, which has a carrying capacity of 134 soldiers, said the decision was made to take the refugees out of Kabul after they pulled themselves into the cargo hold using the half-open ramp.
Speaking to US defence and security news site Defense One, a defence official said “the crew made the decision to go".
“Approximately 640 Afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived at its destination," the official said.
The photo of the refugees aboard the plane was one of a number of photos and videos to emerge from the airport in Kabul, documenting the desperate scenes of hundreds of Afghans climbing onto aircraft and running onto the airport tarmac.
An Afghan interpreter for the Australian Defence Force who was among those at the airport spoke to SBS News about the concerns that were prompting hundreds to flee.
"Please safe our life. Please save our family. Please, we are not safe here."
At one point, US officials closed the airport amid the chaos.
Army Major General Henry Taylor said the airport has re-opened and that nearly 3,500 troops will be based in Kabul in the next 24 hours, approaching the total of 6,000 troops allocated for the evacuation operation.
"We are focused on the safest evacuation of Americans and Afghans," he said.
At least seven people have reportedly died, according to Associated Press. VOA is reporting an investigation is underway into the civilian deaths.
"You can expect that we will have a look at this to see what happened and to see what we can learn from it in the future," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said.
'Plans are not perfectly predictive'
Mr Kirby said the videos of chaos at the airports are concerning, but he denied that there was a lack of planning or preparation.
"I think when you look at the images out of Kabul, that would have been difficult for anybody to predict," he said.
He said drills and scenarios for "non-combatant evacuations" were underway since May.
"Could we have predicted every single scenario and every single breach around the perimeter around the airport with only a couple of thousand of troops on the ground?
"Plans are not always perfectly predictive.
"And it is a well-known military maxim that plans often don't survive first contact."
Mr Kirby rejected claims that there had been no planning for the possibility of the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban, but he conceded the speed of the fall was a factor not fully understood.
US soldiers stand guard along a perimeter at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on 16 August 16,2021. Source: AAP
"It happened very fast. And one of the things that we couldn't anticipate - and didn't anticipate - was the degree to which Afghan forces capitulated - sometimes without a fight."
More than 700 Afghans refugees have been evacuated from Afghanistan in the past 48 hours on board contract and commercial aircraft.
Garry Reid, the director of the US Defence Department's Afghanistan crisis action group, said 22,000 places are being created for the Afghan refugees to be temporarily relocated at sites in the US.
"People who come to these locations will be pre-screened by the Department of Home Security to enter on condition of full immigration processing, once they arrive."
He said the need to evacuate has become so great that outbound flights are people are also then being put onto onward transportation.
"We have transported several hundred to countries in the region and aligned them with our colleagues for their onward transportation. We anticipate picking up the pace, provided that we can stabilise the conditions in Kabul."
2,000 Afghans resettled in the US
In recent weeks, 2,000 Afghans have been brought to the US under the Afghan SIV (Special Immigrant Visas) program created in 2009 for Afghan interpreters and contractors who assisted US troops.
The granting of visas under the program usually takes two years.
US officials revealed in the last 24 hours that it was only decided at the end of June that the option for mass evacuation needed to be organised for Afghan locals who assisted US troops.
Mr Kirby said in July, two months after President Biden confirmed the US troop withdrawal, a crisis cell was formed to facilitate mass evacuations for Afghan locals.
"But you can go back to the spring and hear the Secretary (of Defense Lloyd Austin) himself talk about interpreters and translators and the sacred obligation that we know that we have to them," he said.
"Everything that you're seeing in the last 48-72 hours is personal for everybody here at the Pentagon."
Mr Reed defended the two-month delay for the creation of the crisis cell, saying the Pentagon could only act in "support of the State Department" who manages the SIV program.
"The addition of the US military support to that program was new. And it was generated by guidance to try and accelerate the process - due to the time delays inherent within getting them through."
Other countries have already - or are in the process of - evacuating embassy staff, including Italy, Saudi Arabia, France, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia and the Czech Republic.
