About 200 foreigners, including Americans, fly out of Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, have left Kabul on an international commercial flight, marking the first large-scale evacuation since U.S. and NATO forces left Afghanistan last week.

Their departure on Thursday represented a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the U.S. and Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders.

The Taliban have said they would let foreigners and Afghans with valid travel documents leave, but a dayslong standoff over charter planes at another airport had cast some doubt on those assurances.

The Qatar Airways flight landed in Doha.

A senior U.S. official said that Americans, U.S. green card holders and other nationalities, including Germans, Hungarians and Canadians, are on the flight.