Ever seen an Instagram influencer re-post a grid photo on their story? Or wondered why you haven’t seen your fave account post in so long? They could be suffering from an Instagram shadowban. Here’s how you can avoid the same fate.
Instagram is often utilized as a platform of free expression, education and community. But are we really able to post anything we want?
Accounts who choose not to follow the app’s community guidelines could see their accounts suspended, restricted or shadowbanned. Although, multiple users have reportedly been shadowbanned despite conforming to the rules.
What does it actually mean to have a shadowban placed on your account? Are there ways to avoid it?
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Your account may be shadowbanned if your content goes against community guidelines
What is a shadowban?
While you’d typically be informed if your account was about to be suspended, accounts can be shadowbanned without warning.
Hubspot state that a shadowban may be applied to your account if your content is deemed “inappropriate.” Instagram users such as Nyome Nicholas-Williams have previously disputed their shadowban as they’ve claimed to follow the community guidelines.
If an account is shadowbanned, the owner is still able to post as much content as they’d like. They may, however, see a significant decline in engagement. This is because Instagram will hide their content from other users, meaning that posts are unlikely to reach the explore page.
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Shadowbanned users won’t see their posts on the explore page any time soon…
How do I avoid a shadowban?
There are a number of reasons an Instagram account might be shadowbanned – and they don’t stop at the community guidelines! Using (un)follow apps, broken or “banned” hashtags such as “like4like” might get you the chop as well.
Its always worth reviewing the app’s guidelines to make sure you’re not posting anything dodgy. The guidelines state that your content should always be “your own,” and should never contain “nudity” or offensive imagery. “Spam” is also against the rules, so make sure you’re only posting a reasonable amount of times per day.
As long as you’re sticking to the guidelines and only using trustworthy external apps, you should be safe!
TORONTO -- The length of seal hunting in a rural Alaskan village is being "severely reduced" due to climate change, which experts say threatens a necessary aspect of the community's Indigenous way of life.
According to a recent study, the seal hunting season for the Inupiaq people of Kotzebue has been shortened by approximately one day per year for the last 17 years with sea ice decline being a "major cause" of the shrinking timeframe.
The study, conducted by Indigenous hunters, the village of Kotzebue and scientists out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), noted that the Inupiaq people have depended for generations on bearded seals, known as ugruk in Inupiaq, for food and clothing.
According to the study, ugruk and hunters both rely on specific sea ice conditions.
Scientists report that ugruk follow the melting Chukchi Sea ice edge northward during breakup and enter Kotzebue Sound in the spring. Once inside the sound, the seals feed while resting on chunks of floating ice, called floes.
Donna Hauser, marine mammal biologist at UAF and co-leader of the research, said the Kotzebue Sound provides an important spring habitat for ugruk between foraging bouts.
"We learned from our Kotzebue research partners that hunting ugruk is actually like hunting the right kind of ice," Hauser explained in a press release.
The study used hunters' knowledge of the ice conditions combined with satellite images over the years.
The study found that the ice floes in the Kotzebue Sound now melt about 22 days earlier than they did in 2003 -- the first year of the study.
Bobby Schaeffer, a Kotzebue elder, hunter and co-author of the paper, says the community used to be able to "safely and predictably" find seals on these floes.
"We used to hunt ugruk into July when I was growing up back in the 1950s. People would be out there during Fourth of July celebration because there was so much ice. Now sometimes we’re done before June comes around," he said in the release.
The study reports that the hunting season closes roughly 26 days earlier on average than in the past. Authors of the study say this shorter window for hunting means there is less flexibility for hunters as they are not able to begin hunting any earlier.
According to the study, the season's start timing depends on the arrival of the seals and a channel in the ice opening in front of the Kotzebue so hunters can launch their boats.
Because of the reduced hunting season, researchers say the type of hunting experience has shifted. With less ice, hunters typically embark on shorter, more frequent trips, according to the study.
In addition, hunters say the ugruk have changed their behaviours. With less ice, they say the seals now congregate in large groups on the scarce floes.
The study noted that in spring 2019, the Kotzebue Sound had almost no ice, forcing hundreds of seals to gather on just a few floes.
While this resulted in a high hunting success with little effort, local hunters worry that ice floes may be farther from Kotzebue across large expanses of open water if the current rate of climate change persists.
Experts say this means hunters would face increased risk and lower their chances of success.
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Climate change shortens length of seal hunting season for Indigenous Alaskans: study - CTV News
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The platoon of Navy SEALs went off to war in 2017 as a "band of brothers." By the time they came home, some of them had turned on their leader, Eddie Gallagher, a man they'd once revered.
Former SEAL Josh Vriens was a member of Alpha Platoon. "When I found out he was my Chief, I was excited," he said. "I saw how he did business and ran our training. He was always motivated. That's exactly what you're looking for in a Chief."
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin asked, "Did you see him as a role model?"
"Absolutely," Vriens replied. "He was someone I looked up to."
Members of Alpha Platoon.CBS News
But after months of vicious house-to-house fighting in Iraq, Vriens and other members of Alpha Platoon did the unthinkable: they broke the "code of silence," and accused their leader of war crimes.
Until now, none of them had been interviewed on television.
Vriens said, "If your loyalty lies with a guy like Eddie Gallagher, then you need to reevaluate why you're a Navy SEAL."
"A lot of them were so torn apart by what happened on that deployment that they immediately left the SEALs completely disillusioned," said New York Times reporter David Philipps, who has written a book about Gallagher's platoon, called "Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs" (Crown). "You've got a bunch of exceptional alpha males, all together, and sometimes that drove people to do things that got so far away from the values that they thought they represented that it struck other SEALs as crazy."
Crown
Vriens had never been in combat, and ached to get in it: "If you're a United States Navy SEAL and you don't [fight], that's like being a football player and not wanting to play in the Super Bowl. That's our job."
Gallagher gave Vriens and the rest of Alpha Platoon exactly what they wanted. They were supposed to stay 1,500 yards behind the front line, backing up Iraqi troops as they retook the city of Mosul from ISIS. But Vriens said Gallagher told them to turn off their GPS trackers so they could get closer to the fight without headquarters knowing.
"Originally that was Eddie's idea," Vriens said, "but at the same time we were signing on with it. Anybody that wasn't cool with it was kind of labeled as a coward. The rest of us, we wanted to get after it. And you know, unfortunately that meant breaking the rules."
Philipps said, "There's a subculture of SEALs who feel that, to a certain extent, they are above the law and should be – that the real fighting, the dirty fighting that must be done by unconventional forces, sometimes isn't as pretty as the rulebook makes it sound."
But some members of Alpha began to believe Gallagher was needlessly risking casualties, exposing his men to enemy fire on a rooftop, for instance, where a helmet cam captured the moment one of them got hit.
As Philipps tells it, some days Gallagher would hole up in a sniper position and come back bragging about his kills. At first, the SEALs passed it off as just talk. "And then, some of the platoon started to see what they thought was his bullets actually connect with old men, with school-age girls, and they had to realize, 'Wait a minute: all these stories that he's been telling, maybe those aren't jokes,'" he said.
Then, the Iraqis brought in a barely-conscious ISIS fighter who had been wounded in an air strike. A helmet cam video showed Gallagher taking charge of the prisoner.
Chief Eddie Gallagher (right, in cap) takes control of a prisoner (far left), an ISIS fighter who had been wounded. CBS News
The rest of that video has vanished, but three SEALs said they witnessed Gallagher stab the prisoner.
Afterward, some of the men lined up for a trophy photo with the body, but later claimed they only did it to please Gallagher.
Martin asked, "Why do the world's toughest dudes seem so scared of Gallagher?"
Philipps said, "Eddie Gallagher is a popular, respected dude, with connections all over the SEAL base back home. If you intend to stay in your career and move up as a young SEAL, going against a guy like Eddie Gallagher is probably the worst decision you can make."
Eleven months later, Vriens and other members of Alpha told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service what they say happened. They were not just diming Gallagher out; they were breaking the code of silence.
Vriens said, "How am I supposed to teach my kid between right and wrong and look 'em in the eye, if I'm not doing everything that I can?"
Gallagher was charged with premeditated murder, but the prosecution's case fell apart in a made-for-TV moment when their star witness suddenly confessed that it was he who killed the prisoner.
Gallagher's acquittal was hailed by then-President Trump, and the newly-retired Navy SEAL returned the favor by presenting the commander in chief with an ISIS flag.
Today, Gallagher lives in the Florida panhandle with his wife, Andrea, keeping a high profile in the culture wars.
According to Gallagher, he and three other SEALs performed emergency procedures on the fast-sinking prisoner.
"Were you keeping him alive?" Martin asked.
"Yeah, we were," said Gallagher. "I mean, as they were doing the procedures, he was alive, but he … it wasn't looking good."
A year later, on the Apple podcast "The Line," in an interview conducted by Dan Taberski, we heard a very different story:
Gallagher: "The grain of truth in the whole thing is that that ISIS fighter was killed by us and that nobody at that time had a problem with it. We killed that guy. Our intention was to kill him. Everybody was on board. Not one person was like …"
Dan Taberski: "Your intention was to kill him."
Gallagher: "It was to do medical scenarios on him until he died."
Taberski: "Is that nursing to death?"
Gallagher: "Yeah, if you want to put it in a nice way."
Martin asked Taberski, "Were you surprised?"
"Shocked, just on-the-floor shocked," he replied. "Couldn't believe it. Could not believe it. After all this time, that he was willing to change his story like that, was incredibly shocking for me, incredibly surprising."
Gallagher's attorney says the editing of Taberski's interview was misleading. The Navy says the case is closed.
For Josh Vriens and other members of Alpha Platoon, the case of Eddie Gallagher remains open.
"His story just keeps changing," Vriens said. "The only way he's going to heal and come out on the other side of this is if he comes clean. His greatest punishment right now is living with himself."
Taliban fighters stand guard Saturday at a checkpoint near the gate of Hamid Karzai international Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. | Wali Sabawoon/AP Photo
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview that aired Sunday he expects the Taliban will continue to allow people to leave Afghanistan after Aug. 31.
Speaking to Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week,” Blinken said, “114 countries have made very clear that it is their expectation that the Taliban will permit freedom of travel going past Aug. 31. So, that is a clear expectation across the entire world, across the entire international community.“
Discussing fears that the Taliban will essentially seal off the country, Blinken said the U.S. is “making sure that we have in place all of the necessary tools and means to facilitate the travel for those who seek to leave Afghanistan after Aug. 31.“
Blinken was addressing the question of whether there was any hope that any remaining Americans and some allies of the United States still within Afghanistan — particularly those who helped the U.S. during the 20 years American forces have been in the country — would have a chance to leave the country if they can’t get to the airport in Kabul by Aug. 31, when the ongoing international evacuation is supposed to end.
“We've been very actively planning,” Blinken said, “for what would be necessary to keep the airport functioning, either to have it function right — immediately after the 31st or if necessary to take the steps required to reopen in a timely fashion, working with countries in the region who are very interested in helping.
“The Taliban have a strong interest in having an airport that functions, the Afghan people have a strong interest in an airport that functions, the entire international community has that interest.”
Blinken said the loss of 13 Americans killed Thursday during an attack at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport would continue to be deeply felt.
“We couldn't do our jobs as diplomats in any place around the world without the Marines and, of course, we certainly could not have done the job that's been done in Kabul without these extraordinary men and women, including the 13 who gave their lives a couple of days ago. So I just wanted to share with you and others how deeply we feel this, especially at the State Department,” he said.
In an interview that immediately followed Blinken’s, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) repeatedly denounced Blinken, President Joe Biden and the administration for relying on “happy talk.”
“It was a disgusting revelation of yet again no plan,” Sasse said of Blinken’s interview.
The Magnolia football team had a potential go-ahead touchdown pass in the air in the fourth quarter. Tompkins linebacker Bryce Shaink had other plans.
Shaink read the play and leaped in front of the receiver at the goal line for a game-altering interception, starting a blitz of turnovers for the Tompkins defense. Maliik Edwards added interceptions on consecutive possessions as the Falcons prevailed 18-6 on Saturday at Legacy Stadium.
“He just scrambled out and I saw Sean Dubose get good pressure,” Shaink said. “That’s a key moment. I’m just going to do my job. I’m going to get the ball and that’s what happened. I took it as far as I could and I’m glad we got that stop.”
It was a clash of 10-win district champions from 2020, both with ample defensive talent returning. The score reflected it, as Tompkins led 12-0 at halftime and could never pull away by more than two scores.
Stymied much of the first half, Magnolia finally got some momentum and completed a 66-yard drive, with a 29-yard pass from Ross Choate to Mac Postel Jr. and a third-down catch by Marcus Childs setting up an 8-yard touchdown run by Deonald Butler. The Bulldogs missed the point-after attempt but pulled within 12-6 with three minutes, 47 seconds left in the third quarter.
Magnolia appeared poised to take the lead in the fourth, sparked by a 48-yard reception from Dustin Lindvall. But after two runs produced little, Shaink pounced on a third-down pass to abruptly halt the drive.
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The Falcons were not finished, as Edwards hauled in an overthrown pass on Magnolia’s next drive and returned it to the four, setting up a 1-yard touchdown by Collin Marshall.
The Bulldogs stopped the two-point attempt and once again drove inside the red zone on the strength of Butler’s reception. But Edwards timed his leap on a fade pattern for his second pick, this one in the end zone.
“My teammates, they’re going to get in the way and force them to make bad throws,” Edwards said. “I just capitalized on the quarterback’s mistakes. I saw the ball come out and I caught it.”
Tompkins defeated Magnolia for the second consecutive season opener, including a 24-21 win last year in which the Bulldogs rallied from a 24-0 halftime deficit. Falcons coach Todd McVey said his team was better prepared for the charge this time, particularly on defense.
“They did an outstanding job playing the ball and doing something with it,” McVey said. “I’m very proud of their efforts and the way they responded. Both offense and defense were in some tough situations but they both responded well. It was good to see.”
Tompkins controlled the pace in the first half, driving into Magnolia territory four times while allowing three first downs. But the Bulldogs kept the game within reach, stopping two of the drives.
William Alexander read an option attempt on fourth-down, stopping the play for a 7-yard loss as Magnolia took over at its own 33.
But the Falcons cashed in on their next possession, covering 71 yards in nine plays with the help of a 33-yard reception by Joshua McMillan, who had more than 100 yards in the first half.
Marshall finished the drive with a 4-yard touchdown, but Magnolia’s Dylan Hayes blocked the point-after kick to keep the score 6-0. A senior, Marshall scored his first two varsity touchdowns.
“The offensive line was blocking everybody up,” Marshall said. “I had a clear read, the receivers we focused on being blocking receivers and I think that’s what we really did tonight to move the ball efficiently.”
Tompkins advanced to the Magnolia 20 on its following drive before Alexander recovered a fumble. The Bulldogs could not work away the rest of the half, however, and Cole Francis found McMillan with a perfect deep ball for a 31-yard touchdown. The two-point pass failed, leaving the score 12-0 at halftime.
Tompkins held Magnolia to 58 yards in the first half, with Evan Tymon, Daniel Aigbogun and Maliik Edwards among the many playmakers. The Falcons’ defense ultimately had the final say in the outcome.
“It’s a wild season opener, that’s for sure, but it made us tougher,” Shaink said. “We needed that. A wake-up call never hurts. I think this was one of them. It’s going to make us better in the long run. We’re going to look back at this game and say we needed it.”
Tompkins will face another 2020 district champion next week, facing Clear Springs on Friday at Challenger Columbia Stadium. Magnolia hits the road the same night, traveling to play former district rival Brenham. The Bulldogs rebounded well last year, defeating the Cubs 35-10 and not losing until the area round of the playoffs.
Taliban forces sealed off Kabul's airport Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation and most NATO nations flew out their troops after two decades in Afghanistan, winding down a frantic airlift that Western leaders acknowledged was still leaving many of their citizens and local allies behind.
The United States, which says round-the-clock multinational flights have evacuated 117,000 people since the Taliban claimed Kabul on Aug. 15, was keeping up airlifts ahead of President Joe Biden's Tuesday deadline for withdrawal.
Britain also was carrying out its final evacuation flights Saturday, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to "shift heaven and earth" to get more of those at risk from the Taliban to Britain by other means.
Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, said in a video from Kabul airport and posted on Twitter that it was "time to close this phase of the operation now."
"But we haven't forgotten the people who still need to leave," he said. "We'll continue to do everything we can to help them. Nor have we forgotten the brave, decent people of Afghanistan. They deserve to live in peace and security."
British troops are seen after returning from Afghanistan at an airport in Brize Norton, U.K., on Saturday. (Alastair Grant-WPA/Getty Images)
Britain's defence ministry said late on Friday that it had evacuated more than 14,500 Afghan and British nationals in the two weeks since the Taliban took control of the country.
Canada's military evacuation mission in Kabul ended on Thursday — just hours before the airport suicide bombing — but the federal government has said it's continuing to work to find ways to get Canadians and vulnerable Afghans out of Afghanistan.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau on Friday said Canada airlifted about 3,700 people during the operation and called on those still trapped in Afghanistan to not "lose hope."
"At the moment, we're asking people to stay put because there is a lot of things that are going on at the moment and we're going to keep in constant contact with them," he said.
As the flow of planes leaving Kabul slowed, others arrived in locales around the world carrying Afghans who managed to secure places on the last evacuation flights, including in the Washington area, Philadelphia, Madrid, Birmingham, England, among others. Some were relieved and looking forward to starting their new lives far from the Taliban, but others were bitter about having to flee.
Families airlifted from Kabul are seen arriving at an airport in Chantilly, Va., on Saturday. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/The Associated Press)
In Spain, evacuee Shabeer Ahmadi, a 29-year-old journalist targeted by the Taliban, said the United States had doomed the work he and others had put into making Afghanistan a better place by allowing the insurgent group to reclaim power.
"They abandoned the new generation of Afghanistan," Ahmadi said.
An evacuation flight to Britain landed with an extra passenger on Saturday after the cabin crew delivered a baby girl mid-air, Turkish media reported. The parents named her Havva, or Eve, and she was at least the fourth baby known to have been born to Afghan mothers who went into labour on evacuation flights.
Families bury victims of terror attack
Meanwhile, families of Afghans killed in Thursday's suicide bombing at the airport by an Islamic State group affiliate continued burying their dead — at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members died in the attack.
Among those killed was Belal Azfali, a 36-year-old contractor for a U.S.-funded project who had gone to the airport on his own, without his wife. His remains were so disfigured that he could only be identified when someone picked up the family's repeated calls to the cellphone he had with him, relatives said.
The U.S. on Saturday released the names of the 13 Marines, Navy and Army personnel who were killed in the bombing. They included at least one of the Marines — recently promoted Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23 — who were seen in widely circulated photos cuddling Afghan infants they had temporarily rescued from the crush of the crowds outside the airport gates this month.
In this undated photo, U.S. Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee holding a baby at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. (U.S. Department of Defense via AP)
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed Saturday that the group's forces were holding some positions within the airport and were ready to peacefully take control of it as American forces flew out. But Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby denied the claim.
The Taliban did deploy extra forces outside of the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday's bombing . New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. Areas where the crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country were largely empty.
Officials said U.S. forces were taking every precaution at the airport, as there were concerns that IS, which is far more radical than the Taliban, could strike again. Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor said during a Pentagon news conference Saturday that a retaliatory drone strike Biden ordered had killed two "high-profile" IS militants believed to have been involved in planning or facilitating attacks, not one, as initially reported.
An Afghan who worked as a translator for the U.S. military said he was with a group of people with permission to leave who tried to reach the airport late Friday. After passing through three checkpoints they were stopped at a fourth. An argument ensued, and the Taliban said they had been told by the Americans to only let U.S. passport-holders through.
WATCH | Suicide bombing, gunmen kill dozens near Kabul airport:
Suicide bombing, gunmen kill dozens near Kabul airport
2 days ago
Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a crowd outside Kabul’s airport, killing at least 12 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghan civilians. U.S. President Joe Biden says those behind the attacks will pay for them. 2:27
"I am so hopeless for my future," the man later told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. "If the evacuation is over, what will happen to us?"
Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesperson, said Saturday that Afghans who had worked with American forces still were being allowed in.
According to a State Department spokesperson, 5,400 Americans and likely more have been safely evacuated from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, including nearly 300 Americans in the last day. Another 350 were still seeking to leave the country, and those were the only ones the department could confirm were still in Afghanistan.
Economic crisis
As Tuesday's deadline draws near and with the Taliban controlling nearly all of the country, hundreds of protesters, including many civil servants, gathered outside a bank while countless more lined up at cash machines. They said they hadn't been paid for three to six months and were unable to withdraw cash.
ATM machines were still operating, but withdrawals were limited to about $200 every 24 hours. Later Saturday, the central bank ordered commercial bank branches to open and allow customers to withdraw $200 per week, calling it a temporary measure.
People gather outside a closed bank in Kabul on Saturday. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images)
The economic crisis, which predates the Taliban takeover, could give Western nations leverage as they urge Afghanistan's new rulers to form a moderate, inclusive government and allow people to leave after Tuesday.
Afghanistan is heavily dependent on international aid, which covered around 75 per cent of the toppled Western-backed government's budget. The Taliban have said they want good relations with the international community and have promised a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last governed the country, but many Afghans are deeply skeptical.
The Taliban cannot access almost any of the central bank's $9 billion US in reserves, most of which is held by the New York Federal Reserve. The International Monetary Fund has also suspended the transfer of some $450 million. Without a regular supply of U.S. dollars, the local currency is at risk of collapse, which could send the price of basic goods soaring.
WATCH | Nations must 'step up' to help Afghanistan, says UN spokesperson:
Nations must 'step up' to help Afghanistan, says UN spokesperson
The need for humanitarian aid is huge for ordinary Afghans, says Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Half the population is already thought to be in need of aid, he says. (Credit: Associated Press Photo) 1:24
Biden has said he will adhere to a self-imposed Tuesday deadline for withdrawing all U.S. forces, and the Taliban have rejected any extension of the date. He and the leaders of other NATO allies said they would try to work with the Taliban to allow their nationals and Afghans who had worked with them to leave.
The Taliban have encouraged Afghans to stay, pledging amnesty even to those who fought against them. They have said commercial flights will resume after the U.S. withdrawal, but it's unclear if airlines will be willing to offer service.
The U.S. and its allies have said they will continue providing humanitarian aid through the U.N. and other partners, but any broader engagement — including development assistance — is likely to hinge on whether the Taliban deliver on their promises of more moderate rule.
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Taliban largely seal off Kabul airport as U.S., allies wind down evacuation efforts - CBC.ca
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban deployed extra forces around Kabul’s airport Saturday to prevent large crowds from gathering after a devastating suicide attack two days earlier, as the massive U.S.-led airlift wound down ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline.
New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. Areas where large crowds of people have gathered over the past two weeks in hopes of fleeing the country following the Taliban takeover were largely empty.
A suicide attack on Thursday by an Islamic State affiliate killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and there are concerns that the group, which is far more radical than the Taliban, could strike again. The U.S. military said it killed an IS militant early Saturday in a drone strike, after U.S. President Joe Biden had promised swift retaliation.
Many Western nations have already completed their evacuation operations ahead of Tuesday’s deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces.
An Afghan who had worked as a translator for the U.S. military said he was with a group of people with permission to leave who tried to reach the airport late Friday. After passing through three checkpoints they were stopped at a fourth. An argument ensued, and the Taliban said they had been told by the Americans to only let U.S. passport-holders through.
“I am so hopeless for my future,” the man told The Associated Press after returning to Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. “If the evacuation is over, what will happen to us?”
On Saturday, the Taliban fired warning shots and deployed some kind of colored smoke on a road leading to the airport, sending dozens of people scattering, according to a video circulating online that was consistent with AP reporting.
More than 110,000 people have been safely evacuated through the Kabul airport since the Taliban takeover, according to the U.S., including around 6,800 in the last 24 hours. But thousands more are struggling to leave and may not make it out by Tuesday.
In Kabul itself, hundreds of protesters, including many civil servants, gathered outside a bank while countless more lined up at cash machines. The protesters said they had not been paid for the past three to six months and were unable to withdraw cash. ATM machines are still operating, but withdrawals are limited to around $200 every 24 hours.
Later Saturday, the central bank ordered commercial bank branches to open and dispense up to $200 a day to customers, calling it a temporary measure.
The economic crisis, which predates the Taliban takeover earlier this month, could give Western nations leverage as they urge Afghanistan’s new rulers to form a moderate, inclusive government and allow people to leave after Tuesday.
Afghanistan is heavily dependent on international aid, which covered around 75% of the toppled Western-backed government’s budget. The Taliban have said they want good relations with the international community and have promised a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last governed the country, but many Afghans are deeply skeptical.
The Taliban cannot access almost any of the central bank’s $9 billion in reserves, most of which is held by the New York Federal Reserve. The International Monetary Fund has also suspended the transfer of some $450 million. Without a regular supply of U.S. dollars, the local currency is at risk of collapse, which could send the price of basic goods soaring.
A U.N. agency meanwhile warned that a worsening drought threatens the livelihoods of more than 7 million people. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said Afghans are also suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and displacement from the recent fighting.
Earlier this month, the U.N. World Food Program estimated that some 14 million people — roughly one out of every three Afghans — urgently need food assistance.
The FAO said that crucial help is needed ahead of the winter wheat planting season, which begins in a month in many areas. So far, funding would cover assistance to only 110,000 families of farmers, while some 1.5 million need help, the agency said, adding that the current harvest is expected to be 20% below last year’s.
Biden has said he will adhere to a self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing all U.S. forces. The Taliban, who control nearly the entire country outside Kabul’s airport, have rejected any extension.
Italy said its final evacuation flight had landed in Rome but that it would work with the United Nations and countries bordering Afghanistan to continue helping Afghans who had worked with its military contingent to leave the country.
“Our imperative must be to not abandon the Afghan people,” especially women and children, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Saturday. He said 4,890 Afghans were evacuated by Italy’s air force on 87 flights, but did not say how many others were still eligible.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said the final U.K. evacuation flight for Afghan nationals left Kabul. Further flights over the weekend will bring home British troops and diplomats, though they may also carry some remaining U.K. or Afghan civilians.
The Taliban have encouraged Afghans to stay in the country, pledging amnesty even to those who fought against them. They have said commercial flights will resume after the U.S. withdrawal, but it’s unclear if airlines will be willing to offer service.
The U.S. and its allies have said they will continue providing humanitarian aid through the U.N. and other partners, but any broader engagement — including development assistance — is likely to hinge on whether the Taliban deliver on their promises of more moderate rule.
When the Taliban last governed Afghanistan, from 1996 until the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, they imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law. Women were largely confined to their homes, television and music were banned, and suspected criminals were maimed or executed in public.
This time, the Taliban say women will be allowed to attend school and work outside the home. They have been negotiating with senior Afghan officials from previous governments and say they want an “inclusive, Islamic government.”
But even as the group’s top leadership has struck a more moderate tone, there have been reports of human rights abuses in areas under Taliban control. It’s unclear whether fighters are acting under orders or on their own.
Taliban fighters beat up a cameraman for the private broadcaster Tolo TV earlier this week in Kabul. Saad Mohseni, the CEO of the group that owns the channel, said the Taliban have been in touch with the station’s management about the incident. He said the fighter has been identified, but it’s unclear if he has faced any disciplinary action. There was no comment from the Taliban.
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Faiez reported from Istanbul and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed.
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