U.S. Says Countries To Let Kabul Evacuation Flights Transit

The U.S. government says a dozen countries, from Europe to the Middle East and Central Asia, will allow Americans and others evacuated from Kabul to transit their territory as it steps up its evacuation efforts from Afghanistan.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan had already begun or will soon begin transiting Americans, or in some circumstances others, through their territories.

Earlier reports stated that Germany and other countries in the Middle East had agreed to temporarily host people evacuated from Kabul.

The United States is desperately trying to evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan as reports of Taliban reprisals against Afghans who worked with U.S.-led forces increase, forcing foreign powers to accelerate the evacuation effort.

But officials said no evacuation flights left Kabul for nearly six hours on Friday because they had nowhere to go due to an overflow at Al Udeid air base in Qatar, already sheltering 8,000 Afghan evacuees. Those flights have now restarted.

Price said most of the flights would go from Kabul to Qatar and then these countries. He added that another nearly a dozen countries had also made “generous offers” regarding the relocation of Afghans at risk.

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to host 5,000 Afghan evacuees for 10 days on their way to a third country at the request of the United States, its foreign ministry said.