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Could they fly them out with those fuel tank things?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYncUqxR4h8

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Someone with more knowledge than I feel free to correct but from the web....

      Ferry range: 1,199 nmi (1,380 mi, 2,221 km) with ESSS stub wings and external tanks[177] - assuming they can even fit them with external tanks at Kabul

And the closest place to get them out by ship it looks like is karachi but assume 900-1000 miles.  It might be doable




Considering the waste already this is more likely....at $6M each it's sickening.

What’s it like to get somebody past the gates at Hamid Karzai International Airport? A lot of media and people seem to think it’s like signing in your girlfriend when you lived in the barracks.

It’s not that simple.

It’s more like trying to pick up someone who doesn’t speak your language and looks exactly like everyone else there. “There” being a fucking death metal concert at Madison Square Garden.

And it’s at triple capacity.

And only one door is open.

And the place is on fire.

I’m not a religious person, but the word that comes to mind is “biblical.” It’s like Hurricane Katrina meets Dien Bien Phu.

Anyone who has ever been deployed would recognize HKIA’s entry control points: big barricades with multiple checkpoints. When you get to the last one, that’s Taliban. And then the Taliban kind of spit them out at us.

So when we went out to get our people, I was 5 meters — 15 feet — from the Taliban multiple times. Like, just kicking it. Wild feeling for a guy who spent his career in the military as an Army Ranger with 15 deployments.

But with the main checkpoints a mess, people are improvising. There’s a gray-water canal that the refugees found, and if you can get across the canal to the walls of the airport, you don’t have to go through the Taliban.

So on the walls are Marines and other Americans and every kind of coalition SOF — Norwegians, Belgians, Swedes, Canadians, French. And the Afghans will yell for the nationality they worked for — “I’m looking for Canadians!”  — trying to connect with their guys. And soldiers will yell back, asking them for paperwork.

The lip is about 10 to 12 feet high. If you jumped into the canal, you’d probably get hurt. And you’d be thigh-deep in shit water. If someone hoping to use the canal has the right paperwork or our blue passport, the troops will yell across, “Come on,” and that someone will jump in the shit water and come across. Others, who don’t have passports, might just hang out down there and beg for the foreign service members to let them up, showing a bunch of random paperwork.

So, the guidance is — well, I haven’t seen any guidance from anywhere, except by word of mouth, and dudes are just getting things done anyway. But the guidance is that, if you have a US passport or green card, you can get in. But the Special Immigrant Visas — or SIVs — the State Department has been processing are almost worthless.

If I cruise up with myself and an SIV, they’re probably going to let me in. But if I pull up with an SIV and I have a wife, cousin, and mom, I’m not getting in. They say, “You can’t bring all these people with you, sorry.” People with passports and green cards get all their family members, but even then, it’s immediate family only.

I’ve deployed 15 times, and this is the worst living and working conditions I’ve seen for US troops. I’m a little used to this kind of work, unlike the many young Marines and other service members who are having to sentence these Afghans. They tell someone, “Hey, you can’t come in,” and it’s like telling the person he’s probably going to die.

These kids — the Marines and soldiers — are worn the fuck out.

I helped out with an Afghan general and an Afghan colonel who ran a commando battalion. They drove from Helmand because the Taliban came to their house to kill them. One member of their group of eight had a cellphone, and they got in touch with us.

We went and got them from the unit they arrived with. They had nothing for paperwork except these recommendation letters, all the things you need to apply for an SIV. We were able to email and print some documents. One of the two had a copy of a copy of a recommendation letter.

So we walk the guys through the process, and it feels like “these are not the droids you’re looking for” every step of the way.

Finally, we get to the pax terminal, and I tell the people working there, “He doesn’t have this visa because he applied for it. Here’s these letters. I personally know him.”

It’s like bro code. I have yet to see someone bungle a common-sense decision. It may be coming. I don’t want to jinx it.

Update, 5 p.m. EST, Aug. 24: Late Tuesday, I learned the two men I walked through processing had been rejected from a flight and sent back outside the airport. By 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time — early morning in Kabul — access at the airport gates had been restricted to US citizens and Afghans with immigration visas.

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Could they fly them out with those fuel tank things?

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US soldiers at Kabul airport now forcing German and international journalists onto a flight to Doha. https://t.co/SyiGBEf6sQ

Tobias Schneider  (@tobiaschneider) August 25, 2021

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So...anyone have any idea or lead on info on how many Blackhawks, in flying condition, are at the airport currently ?

I'd love to know this ...PRIOR to Aug 31st....and for it to circulate thru the media before the 31st deadline.

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Which airport? and no one is going to know flying condition.

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Seems like a lot of fighting age healthy males. Why not air drop everyone at the wall with a rifle, helmet and ammo. At least even the odds for them when we leave.

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We need to name the operation before Biden does.

Operation "Wing and a Prayer"?
Operation "do the best you can"
Operation "they won't pin this on me"

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Per WaPo -

The Islamist militants have reportedly ordered some mid-level bureaucrats at Afghanistan’s finance ministry and central bank to resume work, as the new regime faces a cash squeeze and a looming humanitarian crisis. The hasty departure of trained officials, journalists, human rights advocates and others is leaving the war-torn country lacking in expertise needed to govern, analysts say.

It is “time for people to work for their country,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters Tuesday. The order does not apply to women, who should stay home for now, he said, as the group’s fighters haven’t been “trained on how to deal with women, how to speak to women."

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Very high risk of terror attack being reported. Everyone being told to shelter in place and to stay away from the airport.

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Is there still an ISIS presence in Afghanistan? Only thing I've seen is the Taliban found one of their leaders in prison and executed him.

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Very high risk of terror attack being reported. Everyone being told to shelter in place and to stay away from the airport.

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You are not going to nationalize tribal culture, let them fight it out

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Very high risk of terror attack being reported. Everyone being told to shelter in place and to stay away from the airport.

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Au contraire, mon frere.
They have to clear out the reporters so there is little news about what is ABOUT to happen.

For the past three and a half months, I fought day and night, nonstop, in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province against an escalating and bloody Taliban offensive. Coming under frequent attack, we held the Taliban back and inflicted heavy casualties. Then I was called to Kabul to command Afghanistan’s special forces. But the Taliban already were entering the city; it was too late.

I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry.

President Biden said last week that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

It’s true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that’s because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden’s tone and words over the past few months. The Afghan Army is not without blame. It had its problems — cronyism, bureaucracy — but we ultimately stopped fighting because our partners already had.

It pains me to see Mr. Biden and Western officials are blaming the Afghan Army for collapsing without mentioning the underlying reasons that happened. Political divisions in Kabul and Washington strangled the army and limited our ability to do our jobs. Losing combat logistical support that the United States had provided for years crippled us, as did a lack of clear guidance from U.S. and Afghan leadership.

I am a three-star general in the Afghan Army. For 11 months, as commander of 215 Maiwand Corps, I led 15,000 men in combat operations against the Taliban in southwestern Afghanistan. I’ve lost hundreds of officers and soldiers. That’s why, as exhausted and frustrated as I am, I wanted to offer a practical perspective and defend the honor of the Afghan Army. I’m not here to absolve the Afghan Army of mistakes. But the fact is, many of us fought valiantly and honorably, only to be let down by American and Afghan leadership.

Two weeks ago, while battling to hold the southern city of Lashkar Gah from the Taliban, President Ashraf Ghani named me commander of Afghanistan’s special forces, the country’s most elite fighters. I reluctantly left my troops and arrived in Kabul on Aug. 15, ready to fight — unaware how bad the situation already was. Then Mr. Ghani handed me the added task of ensuring the security of Kabul. But I never even had a chance: The Taliban were closing in, and Mr. Ghani fled the country.

There is an enormous sense of betrayal here. Mr. Ghani’s hasty escape ended efforts to negotiate an interim agreement for a transition period with the Taliban that would have enabled us to hold the city and help manage evacuations. Instead, chaos ensued — resulting in the desperate scenes witnessed at Kabul airport.

It was in response to those scenes that Mr. Biden said on Aug. 16 that the Afghan forces collapsed, “sometimes without trying to fight.” But we fought, bravely, until the end. We lost 66,000 troops over the past 20 years; that’s one-fifth of our estimated fighting force.

So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.

First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us.

The Trump-Taliban agreement shaped the circumstances for the current situation by essentially curtailing offensive combat operations for U.S. and allied troops. The U.S. air-support rules of engagement for Afghan security forces effectively changed overnight, and the Taliban were emboldened. They could sense victory and knew it was just a matter of waiting out the Americans. Before that deal, the Taliban had not won any significant battles against the Afghan Army. After the agreement? We were losing dozens of soldiers a day.

Still, we kept fighting. But then Mr. Biden confirmed in April he would stick to Mr. Trump’s plan and set the terms for the U.S. drawdown. That was when everything started to go downhill.

The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military model based on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out.

Contractors maintained our bombers and our attack and transport aircraft throughout the war. By July, most of the 17,000 support contractors had left. A technical issue now meant an aircraft — a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-130 transport, a surveillance drone — would be grounded.

The contractors also took proprietary software and weapons systems with them. They physically removed our helicopter missile-defense system. Access to the software that we relied on to track our vehicles, weapons and personnel also disappeared. Real-time intelligence on targets went out the window, too.

The Taliban fought with snipers and improvised explosive devices while we lost aerial and laser-guided weapon capacity. And since we could not resupply bases without helicopter support, soldiers often lacked the necessary tools to fight. The Taliban overran many bases; in other places, entire units surrendered.

Mr. Biden’s full and accelerated withdrawal only exacerbated the situation. It ignored conditions on the ground. The Taliban had a firm end date from the Americans and feared no military reprisal for anything they did in the interim, sensing the lack of U.S. will.

And so the Taliban kept ramping up. My soldiers and I endured up to seven Taliban car bombings daily throughout July and the first week of August in Helmand Province. Still, we stood our ground.

I cannot ignore the third factor, though. Because there was only so much the Americans could do when it came to the well-documented corruption that rotted our government and military. That really is our national tragedy. So many of our leaders — including in the military — were installed for their personal ties, not for their credentials. These appointments had a devastating impact on the national army because leaders lacked the military experience to be effective or inspire the confidence and trust of the men being asked to risk their lives. Disruptions to food rations and fuel supplies — a result of skimming and corrupt contract allocations — destroyed the morale of my troops.

The final days of fighting were surreal. We engaged in intense firefights on the ground against the Taliban as U.S. fighter jets circled overhead, effectively spectators. Our sense of abandonment and betrayal was equaled only by the frustration U.S. pilots felt and relayed to us — being forced to witness the ground war, apparently unable to help us. Overwhelmed by Taliban fire, my soldiers would hear the planes and ask why they were not providing air support. Morale was devastated. Across Afghanistan, soldiers stopped fighting. We held Lashkar Gah in fierce battles, but as the rest of the country fell, we lacked the support to continue fighting and retreated to base. My corps, which had carried on even after I was called away to Kabul, was one of the last to give up its arms — only after the capital fell.

We were betrayed by politics and presidents.

This was not an Afghan war only; it was an international war, with many militaries involved. It would have been impossible for one army alone, ours, to take up the job and fight. This was a military defeat, but it emanated from political failure.

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We need to name the operation before Biden does.

Operation "Wing and a Prayer"?
Operation "do the best you can"
Operation "they won't pin this on me"

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The Taliban is clearing the roads of abandoned cars. That's a threat as they might be prepping the terrain for an assault w/MRAPs, VBIEDs, etc. That might be the motivation to get the troops out of there before the 31st.

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The Taliban is clearing the roads of abandoned cars. That's a threat as they might be prepping the terrain for an assault w/MRAPs, VBIEDs, etc. That might be the motivation to get the troops out of there before the 31st.

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Interesting.

Taliban agree to let Afghans leave Afghanistan after US withdrawal deadline of August 31: German envoy — AFP

Ragip Soylu  (@ragipsoylu) August 25, 2021

Is it true that the Taliban's checkpoints were up to three hundred meters from the airport gate?
There are several gates, but the main one we pulled, so the check point was about a kilometer from the main gate from the airport. Then it was three hundred to five hundred meters apart.

How did you get people through the checkpoints and through the airport gate?
Well, we had to make an appointment with the checkpoint to let the people go.

What does it mean to arrange a checkpoint with the patrol?
This means that you will leave all weapons at the base and that the one daredevil who currently had it will go to the Taliban kingdom and try to find someone to negotiate with. Quite simple.

In what language, for example, are you negotiating?
I came there and chose the only three people sitting there in turbans. I figured I'd probably be their commanders. The others ran there with heavy weapons and fired everywhere they could. So I came to them, showed them my diplomatic passport, the Czech flag. They looked at it all. I spoke English to them, they didn't react, which didn't surprise me. But they waved at a man who came and had excellent English, British. I started communicating with him and he interpreted between us.

What did you want from him and how did they look at it?
First I needed them to explain the situation there. So the man told me that there are several checkpoints where the locals are waiting and they are gradually releasing them closer and closer. At that time, there were still employees of embassies, but thought of as regular diplomats who decided to come by car. They let people like that. Of course, they didn't want to let ours go, so it was necessary to explain to them that they were employees of the Czech embassy. Nowhere could I say in full that they are military associates. So I tried to give them the idea that I was really a diplomat who had come for his people. That worked. In those six hours, they brought us some eighty people from the checkpoints.

And you talked to him unarmed?
I had my personal weapon, a Glock (pistol, red note) , nicely hidden and it was enough for me.

Were you scared at the time?
I must have been scared. There was constant shooting. The Taliban fired over their heads to keep the locals behind checkpoints. However, they fired in such a way that it was reflected everywhere, so it flew around. But my biggest fear was that someone would come there and blow up. It was such a confusing situation that it could really happen. That's why I went there alone and left my people at a safe distance to cover me so that they could provide information to Prague that I had stayed there.

According to footage from social networks, there was a big commotion of people in front of the airport, there were thousands of people. How could you find the people you needed in that clump?
Here, Taliban representatives helped me with that. It's surprising to say, but after x hours I started to get along with them. So when I showed them on the list that I needed this family, they came to the second check point and just called the family. Then they showed it to me, I nodded that it was them and I already took them over and pulled them on. Several families also reported to me completely spontaneously. I put the Czech flag on my chest, they knew that the Czechs would save them, so they started waving and calling at me. I just checked them according to the list. And I pulled them towards me.

So I certainly got to know the real employees of the embassy. Because I was with them on the embassy grounds the day before. But otherwise I didn't know these people. When I served in Afghanistan, we helped ourselves. We did not have interpreters with us. I was out in 2011, so I didn't know those people.

Do you remember how many people it was?
About 130 (in total the Czech Republic evacuated 170 Afghans)

Did you mention that you had a background with the Germans, you were in the field, can you compare the approach of the Czechia compared to other countries?
From my point of view, we started very early. The task I received - to bring people out of the gates, I did not talk to anyone. I did not go to any coordination meetings that would probably take place at that airport. We got together, got in the cars and just drove for those people. So, from my point of view, we started about a day, two earlier than all the other states.