“Hopefully this will normalize in Afghanistan,” he said.
Mullah Hasnain, Taliban commander, shows a CIA base in Afghanistan
A first flight to evacuate civilians from Kabul landed this Thursday in Qatar with a hundred passengers on board, according to the AFP agency.
“Some 113” passengers were on board the Boeing 777, including Americans, Canadians, Germans and Ukrainians, a source close to the operation told AFP.
According to this source, they will be welcomed in a refugee center in Doha.
Al Jazeera had reported that the Qatar Airways plane had arrived earlier in the day in Kabul loaded with humanitarian aid.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that as of Wednesday there were still a hundred US citizens in Afghanistan, but not all of them necessarily wanted to leave now. Some may have family in the country or other reasons for not leaving yet, he said.
The flight occurs two days after the taliban announce an interim government comprised primarily of ethnic Pashtun men, including hardline Islamists and people wanted by the United States on terrorism charges.
The announcement of the new government was seen as a sign that the Taliban will not try to broaden their base and present a more tolerant face, as they had suggested they would.
Washington evacuated some 6,000 Americans and some 124,000 civilians including Afghan collaborators and citizens of other countries aboard US and allied military flights through the Kabul airport.
Many made a stopover in Qatar, at the Al Udeid air base, the main US base in the Persian Gulf, and several dozen Afghan evacuees have been temporarily welcomed by Doha.
With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters