| Kunduz airlift | |||||||
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| Part of theWar in Afghanistan (2001–2021) | |||||||
 Kunduz District shown withinAfghanistan | |||||||
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TheKunduz airlift, also called theAirlift of Evil, refers to the evacuation byPakistan of hundreds of top commanders and members of theTaliban andal-Qaeda as well as their Pakistani advisors (which included agents of theInter-Services Intelligence and personnel of thePakistani military) from the city ofKunduz,Afghanistan, in November 2001. The incident reportedly occurred just before theSiege of Kunduz, which saw the city fall into the hands of theNorthern Alliance and theUnited States during the opening phase of theWar in Afghanistan.[3] From Kunduz, the militants were taken toChitral inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa andGilgit in theNorthern Areas.[4][5][6][7][8] However, both the United States and Pakistan have denied that the airlift ever took place;Richard Myers, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that theKunduz Airport had been disabled by American bombing raids;[9]Donald Rumsfeld, the then-Secretary of Defense, stated on 2 December 2001 that "neither Pakistan nor any other country flew any planes into Afghanistan to evacuate anybody".[9]
According to theLos Angeles Times, during thesiege of Kunduz, U.S. and Northern Alliance forces (led byMohammad Daud Daud andAbdul Rashid Dostum) had declared that they would treat foreign fighters of the Taliban (including Pakistani military advisers as well as Pakistani and Arab volunteers) more severely than their Afghan counterparts. The Northern Alliance had earlier witnessed Pakistani and Arab involvement in several massacres perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders feared that revenge killings of Pakistanis in Kunduz could lead to unrest and instability in their country and therefore decided to evacuate their forces before the U.S. and Northern Alliance ground forces moved into Kunduz.[10]
According to former American diplomatPeter Tomsen, Pakistani PresidentPervez Musharraf called U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush on or about 18 November and requested permission for an airlift.[11] Bush and Vice PresidentDick Cheney approved, but most cabinet members were not informed.[9] A CIA official interviewed bySeymour Hersh claimed thatUnited States Central Command set up a special air corridor within Afghanistan, "to help insure the safety of the Pakistani rescue flights."[4] The justification for the operation was that Pakistan had many military and intelligence officers fighting with the Taliban, and feared for their safety after Kunduz fell. Pakistan also hoped that evacuated Taliban leadership figures could play a role in the postwar Afghan government. However, once the airlift began, additional Taliban and al-Qaeda members were included.[4]
Estimates of the number evacuated vary.Carlotta Gall, citing Afghan intelligence officials who monitored Taliban radio traffic during the siege, put the number at 2,000.[12] An American intelligence analyst interviewed byAhmed Rashid estimated the number at "certainly hundreds and perhaps as many as one thousand people,"[9] whileBrajesh Mishra, India's National Security Advisor, believed that 5,000 Pakistanis and Taliban were evacuated.[4] Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai said only that "even the Americans did not know who got away".[9]
The revelation that the U.S. had allegedly acquiesced to the escape of individuals including the top leadership of the Taliban and Al Qaeda was a controversial and politically contentious topic within the United States and her aligned partners, that sparked off a debate in the western media and elicited denials of knowledge of this event from topBush administration officials includingSecretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld.[5] Although numerous articles mentioning such an ongoing airlift of Pakistani and other combatants from Kunduz appeared around that time in several international newspapers (such asThe New York Times,The Independent andThe Guardian), the first reference to the specific termAirlift of Evil appeared in a column on the website of theMSNBC news network.[5] The airlift was later detailed in theBBC documentarySecret Pakistan: Double Cross and Backlash.[13][14]
GeneralRichard Myers,Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, stated that the Kunduz airfield had been disabled by United States attacks. Although part of the field could be used, the runway was not long enough for transport aircraft totakeoff or land.[15]