A Secret CIA Gate at Kabul Airport Became an Escape Path for Afghans
WASHINGTON—While thousands of people crowded outside the main gates of the Kabul airport seeking to escape Afghanistan in August, the Central Intelligence Agency opened a back door about 2 miles away along the northern perimeter of the airfield. Known by various code names, including Glory Gate and Liberty Gate, the airport entry, which hasn’t been previously reported, was so secret even the Taliban were unaware it existed. It was located opposite a gas station and run by CIA operatives and Delta Force and guarded by a CIA-trained Afghan paramilitary unit known as 02, who evacuated alongside the Americans in the final flights.
Initially, it was used to smuggle out priority cases for the CIA, including intelligence assets, local agents and their families and a list of high-importance cases sent from the White House. Later, the entrance was expanded to become the main conduit for State Department efforts in the final 48 hours of the civilian evacuation mission to help vulnerable Afghans who worked at the U.S. Embassy and others who could not make it through Taliban checkpoints blocking access to the airport.
The makeshift entrance was created out of Hesco barriers, barbed wire and concrete blast walls that were moved by forklift to provide a layer of protection to the operatives at the entrance. The Afghans who passed through the gate, either on foot or in buses, were searched behind the blast walls, and then driven for several hundred yards along a concrete track and over a bridge into a U.S. base formerly known as Camp Alvarado, which was part of the airport complex. The CIA later opened a second secret gate along the northern perimeter. The CIA declined to comment. The CIA’s role in operating the gate was described by current and former U.S. officials, along with nonprofits involved in evacuation efforts. The State Department declined to comment on the role of the CIA.
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The Glory Gate route became more active on Thursday, Aug. 26, more than a week after the Taliban took Kabul, after a State Department team negotiated an agreement with the CIA to use the passageway to evacuate U.S. Embassy staff and families in the final 48 hours of the civilian evacuation effort. U.S. Embassy staff and families were told to assemble at secret locations around the city and board buses that would take them to the airport.
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Sam Aronson, a political officer at the State Department, was on duty at Glory Gate on the morning of the operation. When the first buses arrived without incident, he asked if they could also start bringing in families from the street. “Just don’t blow our gate,” the operator on the gate said, according to Mr. Aronson. He called the Joint Operations Center, where the State Department and U.S. military were temporarily based inside the terminal at Kabul airport, and told them he had negotiated with the gate operators to bring in families on foot as well. Mr. Aronson’s colleagues began making calls to Afghans on a long list of people that were hoping to be evacuated and, in many cases, had appealed to aid groups, Congress and veterans groups among others for help.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-secret-cia-gate-at-kabul-airport-became-an-escape-path-for-afghans-11633545417 (subscription)