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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden said Sunday the US-led evacuation of Americans, vulnerable Afghans and others from Kabul Airport accelerated over the weekend, despite remaining vulnerable to threats from extremist group Islamic State.
A week after the Taliban completed their takeover of Afghanistan by taking Kabul, Biden said talks would be held among military officials about a possible extension of the airlift beyond Biden’s August 31 deadline. “We hope we don’t have to extend it, but there are discussions,” he said, suggesting the possibility of consulting the Taliban.
Since August 14, the day before the Taliban invaded Kabul, the airlift had evacuated 28,000 people, Biden said. He said that including 11,000 who left Kabul within 36 hours that weekend, but he did not provide details. The number appeared to include flights on chartered and non-US military aircraft, as well as the US Air Force’s C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft, which flew daily from the capital. The US military controls air traffic on both the civil and military sides of the airport.
Tens of thousands of people are forced to join the airlift, which has been slowed down by security problems and hurdles posed by the US bureaucracy.
Biden claimed, without a full explanation, that U.S. forces had succeeded in improving airport access for Americans and others wishing to take flights. He suggested that the perimeter had been expanded to create a “safe zone”.
“What I’m not going to do is talk about the tactical changes we are making to make sure we are as safe as possible,” he said. “We always have, how shall I put it, streamlined access to the airport where more people can get there more safely. It’s still a dangerous operation, but I don’t want to go into details on how we do it. “
Biden later added, “We discussed a lot with the Taliban. They were cooperative to expand part of the area. “
He said groups of Americans in Kabul would be brought to the airport more efficiently and safely, but he didn’t provide any details.
“Any American who wants to go home will come home,” he said.
Early Sunday, government officials said the US military is considering “creative ways” to evacuate Americans and others from Afghanistan to Kabul Airport under “acute” security threats, and the Pentagon on Sunday ordered six US commercial airlines to Evacuates from Afghanistan to transport temporary locations outside of Afghanistan.
Echoing criticism cited by many Republicans, Biden said that no Afghan evacuees would be flown direct from Afghanistan to the United States without prior verification. He said they were being examined in third countries.
Biden and his top staff have repeatedly expressed concern that extremist groups in Afghanistan will attempt to exploit the chaos around Kabul airport.
“The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and that is what we are focusing on with every tool in our arsenal,” said Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan said on CNN’s State of the Union that 3,900 people have been flown out of Kabul on US military flights in the past 24 hours. A U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide unpublished details, said these people had been flown on a total of 23 flights – 14 by C-17 vans and nine on board C-130 cargo planes.
This represents an increase of 1,600 aircraft flown on board U.S. military aircraft in the last 24 hours, but remains well below the 5,000 to 9,000 that the military says has the capacity for daily air transport. Sullivan also said that approximately 3,900 people have been flown on non-US military flights in the past 24 hours.
The Biden administration has not given an accurate estimate of the number of Americans who want to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total between 10,000 and 15,000. Sullivan called it “several thousand” on Sunday.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Austin said that given the deadline for completing the evacuation operation on August 31, Biden would recommend giving her more time. Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to be flown out of the country.
Austin’s interview with ABC aired on Sunday but was taped on Saturday. In a statement on Sunday, the State Department asked people who want to leave Afghanistan as part of an organized private evacuation not to come to Kabul airport “until they have received specific instructions from the flight organizer at the US embassy”. The notice states that others, including American citizens, who have received specific instructions from the embassy to go to the airport should do so.
Austin said the airlift would continue as long as possible.
“We’re going to do our best to get everyone, every American citizen out,” Austin said in an interview. “And we have – we continue to look for different ways – in creative ways – to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get to the airfield.”
The British military announced on Sunday that seven more people had been killed in the incessant crush in front of the airport.
Republicans in Congress increased their criticism of Biden’s reaction. “When the Taliban say that Americans can travel safely to the airport, then there is no better way to ensure that they get to the airport safely than using our military to escort them,” said GOP Senator Joni Ernst von Iowa, an Army Veteran, said “This Week” on ABC’s.
Ryan Crocker, who served as US ambassador to Afghanistan under Presidents George W., Bush and Barack Obama, told Face the Nation CBS that Biden’s management of the withdrawal was “catastrophic” and had sparked a “global crisis.”
A central problem with evacuation is the handling of evacuees as soon as they reach other countries in the region and in Europe. These temporary stations, among others in Qatar, Bahrain and Germany, sometimes reach their capacities, although new locations, among others in Spain, are made available.
To alleviate this and to clear military aircraft for missions from Kabul, the Pentagon activated the civil reserve air fleet on Sunday. The Department of Defense said 18 American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, Omni Air, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines planes are being ordered to move evacuees from stopovers. The airlines will not fly to Afghanistan. The six participating airlines have agreed to help for a little less than two weeks, which roughly coincides with the currently planned duration of the airlift, which is slated to end on August 31.
The civil airline reserve system was last activated in 2003 for the Iraq war. The airliners will retain their civil status, but the military’s Air Mobility Command will control the flights.
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Aamer Madhani, Lolita C. Baldor, Ellen Knickmeyer, Hope Yen, and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
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