Taliban ready to take over Kabul airport

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday the group’s forces were holding some positions within the airport and were ready to peacefully take control of it as American forces flew out. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denied the claim.

The Taliban deployed extra forces outside the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday’s bombing. 

New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces.  Areas where the crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country were largely empty.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kabul, said since Friday evening, the US military has been pulling back its forces and giving up its guard posts to the Taliban on the outer perimeter of Kabul airport and in some positions inside the airport before the deadline for the final withdrawal of its troops on August 31.

“You do get a sense this Saturday evening here in Kabul that this long, drawn-out, often chaotic and traumatic evacuation process [is] finally in the end game,” he said.