Ariana Afghan Airlines has resumed flying between Kabul and three major provincial cities after a technical team from Qatar reopened the capital’s airport for aid and domestic services.
Flights between Kabul and the city of Herat in the west, Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, and Kandahar in the south have restarted, the airline said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Earlier, Qatar’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Saeed bin Mubarak al-Khayarin said a technical team had been able to reopen Kabul airport to receive aid.
Lauding this as a step taken to return the country to relative normality after a tumultuous period, the ambassador added that the airport runway has been repaired in cooperation with Afghan authorities.
Reopening the airport, a vital lifeline to both the outside world and across Afghanistan’s mountainous territory, has been a high priority for the Taliban as it seeks to restore order after they completed their lightning seizure of the country by taking Kabul on August 15.
The resumption of domestic flights sees the Taliban cementing its civilian control of the country, as it faces myriad challenges, including international skepticism, a freeze on government reserves and its need to meet the expectations of fighters who fought two decades for victory. The Taliban has been expected to announce a government for several days.
Taliban fighters took control of several strategic districts during intense fighting Saturday against resistance fighters in the northern Panjshir Valley, the last remaining province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group. If the valley falls, the Taliban would control the country fully, which it never managed during its rule from 1996 to 2001.
- Several domestic flights took off from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport for cities in the nation’s north, west and south. Three flights took off Sunday, an airport official told the Associated Press.
- Taliban fighters took control of several strategic districts in the northern Panjshir Valley, amid heavy fighting from resistance fighters in their last holdout against group.
- The Taliban broke up a protest of women outside the presidential palace in Kabul on Saturday. The protest followed similar demonstrations in Herat and Kabul on Thursday and Friday.
“Officially the airport is open,” said Saad Sunday. “Over the past two days, we’ve repaired more than we expected.
“I want to assure all people that the airport is safe and secure,” Saad said. He added there were remaining technical issues that should be fixed this week.
“There’s no radar, no navigation systems in place,” said Capt. Ghirlandaio Jailani Wafa, a top aviation official at Kabul airport. He said a few domestic flights were able to resume after Qatari engineers set up temporary radio communications between air traffic controllers and pilots last week. But pilots have to navigate flights’ landing and take off visually.
International commercial airlines are unlikely to resume before radar and navigation systems are fully operational because of international aviation guidelines and flight insurance costs, he said.
A humanitarian aid flight from the United Arab Emirates landed at the airport Saturday, and a humanitarian flight from Qatar arrived Saturday according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry. The Qatari aid included 17 tons of medical aid, food stables and baby formula, it said.
Pilots with Afghanistan’s national carrier “Ariana Afghan Airlines” are gradually expanding their domestic routes, according to pilot Capt. Nader Omar.
“We have enough airline crew to conduct our normal operations,” he said, adding there may be a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Domestic flights flew from Kabul to Mazar-e Sharif and Herat Saturday, and on Sunday a flight is planned to Kandahar.
Omar said an international flight is scheduled for later this week but an aviation notice blocking Afghanistan’s airspace — put into place during the massive U.S. military evacuation effort — needs to be removed for the flight to be cleared.