We pretty much mangled every airstrip in the country to the point that nothing as big as a cargo plane was going to be able to use it for much of anything more than a parking ramp. Just think of how long it took us to repair the airports at Bagram and Kandahar. Or even that little airstrip at Camp Rhino for a really good example since it wasn't even a major airport, yet we still had to go and repair it before we could use it well.
So I would have a whole lot of doubts about any story that claims that large aircraft were landing and taking off anywhere in Afghanistan in November, no matter what the source was. They'd have to have the video and it would have to have really well known landmarks in it, and even then I'd be tempted to pull an Oliver Stone on it and think it had been somehow doctored.
Another aspect of these stories that has me doubting them is that when they were first being reported, they couldn't make up their minds whether they were being flown out using cargo planes or helicopters. They kept flipping back and forth, depending on what made the story work better at the time. Or at least that's what it looked like to me.
Oh well, those are my thoughts anyway.
Considering there wasn't a single runway in the whole country at the time that wasn't landmined, blown apart, or otherwise totally disabled, the type of vehicle is very, very important.
My own choice has been the "flying carpet". First of all it's traditional. Secondly it can land anywhere. And third, and most important, it can operate independently, or with a pilot and 5,000 passengers.
Given a choice, I am sure the Pakistani Intelligence folks would have chosen the carpet.