Afghan police have resumed work at the Kabul airport checkpoints alongside the Taliban, two officers reported Sunday, for the first time since the Islamist movement took power on August 15.
Members of the Afghan police were at various checkpoints outside the main airport buildings, an AFP journalist found.
“I went back to work yesterday, more than two weeks after they sent me home,” one of the policemen who requested anonymity told AFP.
“I got a call from a high-ranking Taliban commander asking me to come back. It was wonderful yesterday. I am very happy to be back in service,” said another.
An airport employee, in charge of security for a private company, confirmed that police were deployed around the airport on Saturday.
“They guarantee security with the Taliban,” he told AFP, a week after the country’s new masters urged the forces of the old government to integrate the new security services.
Twenty years after being toppled by a US-led coalition, the Taliban seized control of the country on August 15 after a lightning military offensive.
His coming to power unleashed scenes of chaos at the Kabul airport at the end of August, as thousands of Afghans, frightened by the return of the Taliban, desperately tried to leave the country through the gigantic airlift organized, among others, by States. United.
For a few days there has been an apparent return to normality at the airport.
Two Qatar Airways charter flights took off this week, with foreign nationals and Afghans who had not been able to be evacuated.
The Pakistani national airline, PIA, plans to resume commercial flights between Islamabad and Kabul on Monday.
mah-pjm / mep / pz / erl / meb