Afghanistan: Federal government extends protection for Bundeswehr helpers

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A Bundeswehr transport helicopter is unloaded at Leipzig Airport after being transported back from Afghanistan

Photo: Jens Schlueter / Getty Images

According to the current state of affairs, around 500 Afghan Bundeswehr employees should be allowed to come to Germany in order to avoid possible revenge by the Taliban after the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan.

According to a report, the federal government also wants to take on local staff in special cases who do not work directly for the Ministry of Defense.

"Those who were or are working for external service providers" should not be covered by the "special admission procedure", reported the newspapers of the Funke media group, citing a response from the Interior Ministry to a request from the Greens.

But it went on to say: "According to the agreement between the departments concerned, admission can be made in particularly well-founded exceptional cases if the individual risk can be traced back to the contractual relationship."

Several human rights organizations have asked NATO allies in Afghanistan to take on local staff immediately.

It is clear that they could otherwise be targeted by the Taliban and killed, it said.

DER SPIEGEL recently published an open letter from ex-diplomats, the military and academics to the federal government.

In it they demand a broader, swift and unbureaucratic admission of Afghan local workers and their family members parallel to the ongoing withdrawal of the German contingent.

Germany wants to take in Afghans who, for example, have supported the Bundeswehr soldiers as translators.

According to Taliban extremists, this is how they have allied themselves with the enemy.

On the other hand, the Taliban evidently fear the exodus of capable people and are willing to compromise.

The foreign troops should have withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11th at the latest.

Bundeswehr withdrawal should be through in July

According to its own information, the Bundeswehr is on schedule.

"The Afghan armed forces have already taken over most of our camp," said Inspector General Eberhard Zorn of the "Rheinische Post".

The withdrawal is going according to plan, according to Germany's highest-ranking soldier.

"We'll be done with it by July."

Since the official withdrawal of international troops began on May 1, however, at least 15 districts of the country have fallen to the militant Islamist Taliban.

"You dominate and control more and more rooms," said Zorn.

"I am convinced that the Afghan armed forces will continue to need considerable support - both financially and in terms of training, wherever we are doing it."

"A high probability that we will have to return"

Meanwhile, there are signals from the USA that the US Army is already preparing for its return to the Hindu Kush amid the ongoing withdrawal.

This was confirmed by the state secretary responsible for military reconnaissance in the Ministry of Defense, Ronald Moultrie, at a parliamentary hearing.

His department takes care of keeping the data and knowledge from 20 years of deployment in Afghanistan ready in case of emergency.

"There is a high probability that we will have to return, that al-Qaeda will reappear in the wake of the Taliban's advance and that they will attack the United States," said MP and Afghanistan veteran Mike Waltz.

The military would have to be prepared for this and have the necessary information at hand.

"That's exactly what we think," said Secretary Moultrie.

"We are the ones leading the effort to ensure that military intelligence is focused."

President Joe Biden decided in April, contrary to military recommendations, to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan.

So far, around half of US soldiers have left the country.

Experts fear that the radical Islamic Taliban will quickly regain power without a Western military presence in the civil war country.

mmq / Reuters / dpa / AFP