Brief summary of the air-bridge.
To start with, right now there's no flight control over Afghanistan: flight-crews are "de-conflicting" each other through mutual communication.
The situation at the Hamid Karzai International ("Kabul IAP", for simplicity's sake) is reported as between "volatile", "chaotic" and "tense", depending on the source.
All the European-NATO-patners are complaining that the Americans are determining who is permitted to board the aircrafts, who to land and who to take-off - entirely at their own discretion. If anything is not to their wish, they're shutting down the entire operation. This is regularly resulting in other (than American) aircraft flying out half-empty.
Similarly, the Americans are insisting on being the only ones to have a contact to the Taliban. NATO is zip lip on this, the EU is now trying to open its own communication link (I'm sure that Doha will be curious to help...).
There are reports about multiple Taliban teams moving among the masses of people at the airport, searching for members of the armed forces and for "Afghans" that used to work with the USA and NATO: they are threatening to open fire if the people wouldn't reveal such persons - which in turn is making the Americans ever more nervous. It remains "unclear" what subsequently happens to whoever is caught.
Anyway, as far as we know, the following contingents are involved:
Afghanistan
- 400-500 commandos of the ("former") National Directorate of Security, plus scattered ANA troops are helping US and other foreign troops in controlling the perimeter and overseeing the evacuation. The Pentagon was quick to agree with them, that they're going to act as a rear-guard and be the last flown out.
Denmark
- 1 or 2 C-130Js are used to evacuate Danes and eligible Afghans (including their families) to Islamabad; from there they're flown to Denmark by chartered civilian airliners.
- A company-sized element of the ARmy SOF (Jaegerkorpset) is involved, too.
France
- at least one A.400M and one C-130H-30 are flying people out to Dhafra AB, in the UAE: from there, A.330s of the AdA are flying people to France.
Germany
- A.400Ms of the Luftwaffe; don't know how many, but between 18 August and yesterday afternoon, they've evacuated 1,150 people - all to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. A single A.400M flew out 230 people, yesterday. It was followed by two additional A.400s, which managed to evacuate 800.
- Germans have meanwhile deployed a team of the KSK to Kabul, to help with evacuation and "vetting".
- Germans also recently deployed two H.145M helicopters to Kabul IAP: these are planned to be used for picking evacuees that can't reach the airport...
Great Britain
- It might be easier to get a spoon full of snake's sweat than precise info in this regards. Essentially, London claimed the evacuation would be running "at full speed" already two days ago, and it intends to evacuate 6,000-7,000 British nationals and eligible Afghan staff.
- involved British troops seem to be from the 16th Air Assault Brigade. RAF is probably involved with Globemaster and Hercules transports...
- Aid workers are excluded, just like about 125 Afghan guards of the UK Embassy: the latter were hired by a private contractor, and thus are not eligible for evacuation.
Italy
- 4 C-130Js are used to evacuate people to Kuwait. From there, 3 KC-767 are flying people out to Italy.
- Italians have a small team of the Tuscania Airborne Regiment (Gendarmerie) at Kabul IAP.
- Italian gov is planning to evacuate 2,500 Afghans that used to work for it.
Netherlands
- at least two C-130H-30s (for example: 1 C-130 flew out 69 Germans and 9 Dutch yesterday; the other suffered some kind of technical issue).
- The Dutch are planning to increase the tempo to three C-130-flights a day, today.
Romania
- 1 flight to Islamabad (Pakistan) - by C-130 - evacuating 2 Romanians, 1 British, 1 Bulgarian, and 1 US citizen.
- 14 Romanians waiting to be evacuated yet.
- C-27J available to support if necessary.
Spain
- At least two A.400Ms were involved the last two days; the number should be increased to 4 today. They're evacuating to Dubai, UAE. An airborne ambulance (unclear if A.320 or Dassault Mystere) is waiting for permission to fly to Kabul.
- Spain has two teams deployed at Kabul IAP: a squadron of EZAPAC, the other is the GEO of the CNP at Kabul IAP. The latter are civilians, no military personnel: well-armed for anti-terrorist and security operations, but not trained for "combat", actually. Both were deployed to secure the perimeter (especially the runway).
- Spanish MOD claimed no Spaniards are left in Afghanistan, but this turned out to be wrong when the former Spanish ambassador (sacked on 3 August, but still waiting for replacement) turned out to still be there and organising the evacuation of remaining Spaniards and Afghan co-workers. Meanwhile Spanish president Sanchez continues his vacation at Canary Islands.
- So far, it seems the Taliban denied access to the "Afghan" translators that used to work for the Spanish government and army.
- Thus, the CNP GEO team drove out of the airport (in borrowed vehicles) and picked up a group of Afghans that used to work for Spaniards. These were flown out by a Spanish A.400M, late in the evening: total of 48. Another flight then evacuated about 100.
Turkey
- A.400Ms are flying in and out, but I can't find any precise info, right now.
- Turkish Army has a total of 650 troops drawn from the 2 Bolu Commando Brigade and 5 Hakkari Brigade, reinforced by 200 Azerbaijani Army troops, deployed for protection of the Kabul IAP's perimeter.
USA
- The Pentagon has declared this a "non-combat evacuation operation".
- since 14 August, the Pentagon claims to have evacuated 9,000.
- involved aircraft: lots of C-17As (about 20 flights are undertaken a day), no clear info, but most of ground troops seem to be from the 10th Mountain Division, US Army.
- There are certainly diverse special forces assets around: their presence is confirmed by activities of MH-60M Black Hawk, MH-47G Chinook, and AH/MH-6 Little Bird helicopters - mostly from the 160th SO Aviation Regiment, US Army.
- what's sure is that the PMC contracted to support the State Department has abandoned all seven of CH-46E Sea Knights it used to operate in Afghanistan. These included the one with the registration 154038/N38TU, which - while still operated by the USMC - was involved in the Operation Frequent Wind (Saigon, 1975).
- HH-60Ls operated by the same "wing" of the State Department have all been withdrawn.
- There are considerations of the USA securing the (abandoned) Baghram AB, north of Kabul, to enable more people to be flown out - but there's definitely no "political will" to do so.
- F/A-18E/Fs from USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) are flying top cover (via Pakistan).
As far as I was able to collect info, since Sunday, 15 August, at least 12 people were killed at the Kabul IAP. Some while falling off the aircraft after take-off, others by US, Turkish and other troops deployed there.
Overall number of evacuated so far: 18,000 (as of the last night).
I'm very, very, surprised: nobody is evacuating expats and Afghans via Qatar.
You do good work Norway/Denmark (my bad), best way to augment the population. Both sides win
