Some 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan on a commercial flight out of Kabul on Thursday, the first such large-scale departure since the US and other forces completed their frantic withdrawal over a week ago.
The Qatar Airways flight to Doha marked a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the US and Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers. A long standoff over charter planes at another airport has left dozens of passengers stranded.
A senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, provided the number of westerners on the Qatar flight and said that two senior Taliban officials helped facilitate the departure on Thursday – the new foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Americans, US green card holders and other nationalities, including Germans, Hungarians and Canadians, were aboard.
