(CN) — With the crisis in Afghanistan deepening, the NATO military alliance came under increasing strain on Friday as it evacuated thousands of people from Kabul and assessed what many are calling its catastrophic failure to keep Afghanistan from falling into the hands of the Taliban.
NATO held emergency talks on Friday in Brussels as the situation worsened in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control of the capital Kabul and established itself once again as the rulers of a Central Asian nation racked by four decades of conflict.
The United States and its European allies vowed to step up evacuations of Westerners and Afghan nationals who helped the NATO mission. An Aug. 31 deadline has been set for a complete withdrawal by U.S. and NATO forces and allies. NATO is racing to remove thousands of people who fear for their lives in a Taliban-run Afghanistan.
In Europe, the Afghanistan debacle has become an all-consuming mess with top politicians in the United Kingdom and Germany coming under pressure to resign as reports of Taliban violence emerge.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was slammed for remaining on vacation on the Greek island of Crete even as Afghanistan fell into the hands of Taliban fighters with very little resistance from the NATO-trained and financed Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. Raab was accused of delegating the crisis to junior ministers. But he resisted calls from the opposition Labour Party and members of his own Tory party to step down.
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also held firm as demands for his resignation grew. Maas was accused of mishandling the crisis and misleading the German public by insisting only two months ago that there was no reason to fear a quick Taliban takeover. Like so many others, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Maas said he misread the situation.
“In the past few days I have only thought of one thing, namely drawing conclusions from the mistakes we have all made and making sure to get as many people out of Afghanistan as possible,” Maas told Der Spiegel, a German news magazine.
The evacuation of thousands of people continued on Friday. A hub has been set up in Spain to receive evacuees from Afghanistan.
The urgency to evacuate people became even more poignant as reports emerged of Taliban fighters targeting people who assisted NATO forces and the fallen NATO-supported Afghan government.
Amnesty International reported that Taliban fighters killed nine ethnic Hazara men in Afghanistan's Ghazni province last month. The humanitarian group said it spoke with eyewitnesses who said six men were shot dead and three were tortured to death. The Hazara are a minority group who practice Shia Islam and are one of the most persecuted minorities in Sunni-majority Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“The brutal killings likely represent a tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date, as the group have cut mobile phone service in many of the areas they have recently captured, controlling which photographs and videos are then shared from these regions,” Amnesty said.
The Amnesty report and others warning that Taliban fighters were going door-to-door in Kabul to punish people who worked with NATO forces added to a sense that the Taliban will rule Afghanistan with ruthlessness. Taliban fighters are also accused of firing shots at protesters in Afghan cities who marched against the Taliban takeover.
In recent messages, Taliban leaders pledged to not use violence against collaborators and vowed that they were seeking to build peace in Afghanistan. But the reports of Taliban violence indicate the Islamist group has not moderated its violent creed since it was ousted by NATO forces in 2001 following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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