The first international passenger plane after the Taliban took power landed at Kabul airport on Monday. This is a flight of the Pakistani airline PIA.
The PIA plane, which landed around 10:30 local time (06:00 GMT), carried only a few people.
“There is almost no one on board the plane, about 10 people (…), maybe more crew members than passengers,” said an AFP journalist on this flight departing from Islamabad, writes Agerpres.
On Sunday, a PIE spokesman confirmed the first flight to Kabul, but said work was still underway to resume regular flights. This is one of the first signs of economic normalization for Afghanistan and its main international airport, stormed in late August by thousands of Afghans who wanted to leave the country after the Islamist movement returned to power.
Following the Taliban’s rapid rise to power, the airlift at Kabul airport led to the evacuation of more than 123,000 people, mostly Afghans.
The chaotic and desperate wait for the Afghans took a dramatic turn on August 26, when the local wing of the Islamic State jihadist organization (SI-K) launched an attack near Kabul airport, killing at least 100 people. Subsequently, the Taliban took full control of the airport, aided by allies such as Qatar.
Two Qatar Airways planes took off from Kabul last week, carrying foreign nationals and Afghans who could not be evacuated in a first stage.
On September 3, the Afghan national airline Ariana Airlines announced the resumption of domestic flights.