| So much for their repeated volunteering to handle airport security in the post-America period. |
BREAKING — Turkey evacuates its military from Kabul Airport, says the Defense Ministry
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 25, 2021
Secretary of State says 4,500 of the 6,000 Americans in Afghanistan on Aug. 14 have been evacuated
— luis martinez (@LMartinezABC) August 25, 2021
| The Epoch Times adds: |
"We expect that number to grow in coming days," Kirby said.
There was a delay in reporting the figures because U.S. officials were focused on getting people out of Kabul as quickly as possible, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.
Pentagon officials expressed confidence the airlift, which started on Aug. 14, can get all Americans out by next Tuesday, Aug. 31, the deadline President Joe
The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...had set long before the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
completed their takeover. But unknown thousands of other foreign nationals remain in Afghanistan and are struggling to get out.
With the full U.S. withdrawal looming, the Pentagon said several hundred U.S. troops have been withdrawn because they are no longer needed to complete the evacuation mission. Kirby said these are headquarters staff, maintenance personnel, and others. "It will have no impact on the mission at hand," he said.
The Taliban, who have wrested control of the country back nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks, insist the airlift must end on Aug. 31.
In Kabul, Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference the United States must stick to its self-imposed deadline, saying "after that we won’t let Afghans be taken out" on evacuation flights. He also said the Taliban would bar Afghans from accessing roads to the airport, while allowing foreigners to pass in order to prevent large crowds from massing.
Blinken estimates 1,500 Americans may still await evacuation from Afghanistan
[IsraelTimes] United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan, a figure that suggests this part of the US-led airlift could be completed before US President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline. Untold thousands of at-risk Afghans, however, are struggling to get into the Kabul airport.
Blinken said that the US State Department estimates there were about 6,000 Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan when the airlift began August 14, and that about 4,500 of them have been evacuated so far.
The 6,000 figure is the first public estimate by the State Department of how many Americans were seeking to get out when the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan.
About 500 Americans have been contacted with instructions on when and how to get to the chaotic Kabul airport to catch evacuation flights.
In addition, 1,000, or perhaps fewer, are being contacted to determine whether they still want to leave. Blinken said that some of these may already have left the country, some may want to remain and some may not actually be American citizens. Of the 1,000, the number who are “actively seeking assistance” to leave Afghanistan “is lower — likely significantly lower,” Blinken said.
The US Embassy in Kabul has been evacuated. Staff are operating from the Kabul airport, and are to leave by August 31.
However, refugee groups are describing a different picture when it comes to many Afghans: a disorganized, barely-there US evacuation effort for Afghan allies that leaves the most desperate to risk beatings and death at Taliban checkpoints.
Just days are left before the US military is set to start shutting down its anchoring role in a massive operation that the White House says has evacuated 82,300 Afghans, Americans and other foreigners, on a mix of US, international and private flights.
Kirby said that the US military will preserve as much airlift capacity at the airport as possible in the coming days, ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. The military will “continue to evacuate needed populations all the way to the end,” he said.
He added that, in the final days and hours, there will have to be a balance in getting out evacuees, as well as US troops and their equipment.
Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the deputy director of regional operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US forces had conducted another helicopter mission beyond the perimeter of the airport to pick up people seeking to evacuate. He said that the operation happened in Kabul during the night and that the people were now safely at the airport awaiting an evacuation flight. Taylor provided no other details, but Germany’s top military commander, Gen. Eberhard Zorn, said separately that 21 German citizens had been extracted by the US helicopter. He said that the helicopter crew was American and that German troops picked up the evacuees.
US military and diplomatic officials appear to still be compiling a list of eligible Afghans but have yet to disclose how — and how many — they may be getting out, private Americans and American organizations said.
“We still have 1,200 Afghans with visas that are outside the airport and haven’t got in,” said James Miervaldis with No One Left Behind, one of dozens of veterans groups working to get out Afghans who worked with the US military during America’s nearly 20 years of combat there. “We’re waiting to hear from the US government and haven’t heard yet.”
Marina LeGree of Ascend, a US-based nonprofit that worked to develop fitness and leadership in Afghan girls and young women, described getting calls from US officials telling the group’s interns and staffers to go to the airport for evacuation flights, only to be turned away by American forces keeping gates closed against the throngs outside. One Afghan intern who went to the airport with her family saw a person killed in front of them, and a female colleague was burned by a caustic agent fired at the crowd, LeGree said.
“It’s heartbreaking to see my government fail so badly,” said LeGree, the group’s American director, who is in Italy but in close contact with those in Kabul.
The number of US troops at the airport has dropped by about 400, to 5,400, but the final withdrawal has not begun, Kirby said on Wednesday.
| Courtesy of Gerthudion the Prolific5181: |
[Breitbart] Some Afghans at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, are using American passports that do not belong to them in an attempt to be approved for resettlement in the United States, NBC News reports.
At the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, NBC News reports that State Department officials have detailed five cases where Afghans attempted to use fraudulent American passports to try to get on flights bound for the U.S.
In addition, NBC News reports that vital biometric screening of Afghans looking to come to the U.S. is not being conducted at the airport in Kabul.
| Courtesy of Lord Garth: |
[Politico] The definition of gaslighting’: As chaos unfolds at Kabul airport, Biden team projects calm. “I don’t think the president’s rhetoric matches the conditions on the ground,” one former State Department official said. Tens of thousands of Afghans awaiting U.S. visas and thousands of American citizens are still stuck in Kabul, unable to find safe passage through frantic crowds, Taliban checkpoints and Afghan guards stationed outside the airport.
Gunfire erupted outside of the north gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, killing a number of Afghan security forces. American officials have repeatedly had to close the gates for extended periods, leading guards to turn away even U.S. passport holders.
Multiple sources point to deteriorating conditions inside the airport, including lack of power and sanitation. And tension has emerged between American troops on the ground and State Department officials trying to extract U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.
Meanwhile, the West Wing is looking increasingly disconnected from reality as the Biden White House strives to project a sense of calm competence — even as the Taliban tighten their grip on Afghanistan.