Kabul, Afghanistan (AP) —As the end of the US “eternal war” approaches rapidly, the US Embassy in Kabul and other diplomatic missions are monitoring the deteriorating security situation and considering how to respond. ..

In the countryside, the district is rapidly falling into the Taliban. US military commander allies are re-arming militias with a violent history, raising concerns about another civil war once the US withdrawal scheduled for August is complete.

A spokesman for the US Embassy told The Associated Press that security assessments have been frequent these days. Subject to anonymity in line with the briefing rules, the embassy said it currently has 1,400 US citizens and about 4,000 staff on site the size of a small town.

Fortified city, that is. The embassy is located in the green zone of Kabul, in addition to its own formidable security. Here, the entire neighborhood is closed and a huge blast wall blocks the streets from outside traffic. Afghan security forces are guarding barricades to the presidential residence, other embassies, and districts that also house senior government officials.

The only route is Kabul International Airport in Kabul, which is currently protected by US and Turkish troops. Airport security will have to be resolved before the United States declares the end of the war. Ankara is in talks with the Governments of Washington, the United Nations and Afghanistan to determine who will protect the airport and who will submit the bill.

For now, the airport is operating uninterrupted. However, some countries have restrictions due to a fatal third COVID surge that prompted them to suspend their flights to Kabul. However, India is not one of them, and eight flights arrive from India every week. As a result, the delta variant of the virus first identified in India is widespread in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, it is common to hear speculation about when and when the US embassy will be closed, and at the end of the Vietnam War, images of America’s last days in Saigon were revived.

Already long before the last US and NATO forces began packing, US diplomats arriving at the airport were taken to the US embassy, ​​which was highly fortified by helicopters. A four-mile road trip through the chaotic traffic of Kabul was considered too dangerous.

The suicide bombers attacked along the road with an unpleasant frequency.

For many of Washington’s new diplomats to Afghanistan, their view of the country and Kabul is hidden deep in the Green Zone, with a 10-foot blast wall and a vast embassy protected by the heavily armed U.S. Marine Corps. Limited to what you can see from the premises, there are dogs and cameras in every corner that sniff explosives.

By June, NATO’s solid support American employees, named after NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan, arrived in Afghanistan last November, were not outside the huge gates of the mission.

U.S. spokesmen were unable to reveal an evacuation plan because of safety concerns, or even if it was part of today’s conversation, the embassy would protect its staff. He said he has a detailed plan for every scenario.

If there is an evacuation, it is not the first.

The US Embassy in Kabul was closed in 1989, when the former Soviet Union left the country after negotiating the end of a decade of invasion of Afghanistan. The Communist Party’s supportive government collapsed three years later, after which a brutal civil war broke out by most of the same US alliance warlords still active in Kabul today. This is another reason why fears of a new civil war resonate.

The Taliban has issued a statement not seeking a military takeover of Kabul. Washington has repeatedly warned that military action in the Afghan capital would return the rebels to the Pariah state, denying international approval and support.

Still, shortly after President Joe Biden announced in mid-April that U.S. forces would be gone by September 11, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani may not be able to protect all Afghan diplomatic missions in Kabul. He expressed concern that there was. Familiar with the discussion. There were even proposals for small embassies to move to US compounds for their protection.

The US Embassy responded with an immediate so-called “ordered blockade”, further limiting staff movements and new arrivals.

On April 27, Ross Wilson, Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy, ​​tweeted that unimportant US personnel would leave. The spokesman just says that the number of staff is constantly being evaluated, not how many people have left under that order.

Wilson accused the departure of “increasing reports of violence and intimidation in Kabul.” He also posted the site of the US Embassy, ​​which warns all American citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately on available commercial flights. And for Americans planning to visit Afghanistan, the order was clear: don’t.

The Australian Embassy has been closed and most other Western embassies have reduced staff.

Most expatriates or foreign staff with international aid organizations in Kabul have also left, said Naemat Rohi, deputy director of Akbar, an affiliate of 167 aid organizations, including 87 international charities.

“They said they were doing R & R, to avoid panicking local staff, but they left for safety reasons,” he said.

The escape has led the Taliban to issue multiple statements ensuring that aid groups and Afghans work for a fearless western organization.

However, it did not reassure the interpreters who worked in the US military. A spokeswoman said some had fled Afghanistan but may have emigrated to a third country while immigrant visas to the United States were being processed. There are thousands of applications in the pipeline. Thousands of people rejected have been appealed.

The rapid success of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, especially the rapid surrender of Afghan soldiers in some cases, raises Kabul’s security concerns that the presence of heavily armed warlords revives the image of the civil war in the 1990s. It was.

Marshal Rashid Dostam, a Uzbek war criminal accused of war crimes, has a military base on a hill overlooking Kabul’s luxurious Wajir Akbar Khan district against personal enemies who were once allies. I will. His militia has an uneasy relationship with the Gani administration and other powerful military commanders, including Defense Minister Bismiller Kahn.

Heavy-armed guards patrol Wajir Akbarhan Road, lined with marble mansions of former warlord government officials. Although united against the Taliban today, they have a brutal history of fighting each other.

For some, the Taliban play for Kabul seems inevitable.

“After taking over the district and some states, the Taliban will try to enter Kabul,” said Trek Farhadi, a former adviser to the Afghan government. “They will face not only the regular army, but also the warlords who have accumulated enormous wealth from war-related contracts.”