“Several hundred” Americans remain in Afghanistan after complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Pentagon spokesman announced Tuesday, as military leadership failed in its stated mission to withdraw all northern troops. -Americans of the Taliban-controlled nation in late August.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told MSNBC’s Willie Geist that he does not believe there is an “exact figure” for the number of Americans remaining in Afghanistan, following inaccurate language.
“We think we took out the vast majority of American citizens, which reaches 6,000,” he said. “And we think it’s probably in the few hundred that are still there. And there were also a few hundred who didn’t want to leave. ”
On Tuesday, the last C-17 plane had left Kabul airport at 23:59 local time, just before the August 31 deadline to withdraw troops from the country.
U.S. troops have helped evacuate more than 79,000 civilians from the airport since Aug. 14, including 6,000 Americans and 73,500 Afghans and third-country nationals, by U.S. officials. Now every member of the U.S. service is out of the country.
General Frank McKenzie, the head of the United States Central Command, estimated on Monday that the number of Americans remaining in the country was probably among the “very low hundreds.”
Although U.S. troops have left the country, Kirby stood firm in the U.S. commitment to eliminate the remaining Americans, adding that he is “heartbroken” to have left the Americans stranded in the country. country now controlled by Islamist militants.
“As General McKenzie said yesterday, we have a sad heart that we couldn’t get everyone out, but they still have our commitment, they still have the commitment of this administration and the United States and we will do everything we can to keep trying to get them out of ‘this country and get out of it safely,’ he said.
Kirby cited the lack of time as a reason not to eliminate more allies or American citizens.
“We would definitely prefer to get more people out if we could, but the timing wasn’t there,” he said. “And I’m not just talking about the time on the clock, I’m talking about the time in terms of threat.”
Evacuation efforts came to a brief halt last Thursday when a ISIS-K suicide attack shook Kabul airport and killed 13 members of the U.S. service and about 200 Afghans. Evacuation flights resumed Friday morning.
In a statement Monday, President Biden appeared committed to helping eliminate all Americans who “want to leave Afghanistan” after the deadline.
“I have asked the Secretary of State to lead continued coordination with our international partners to ensure the safe passage of all Americans, Afghan and foreign partners who want to leave Afghanistan,” he said. “This will include work based on the UN Security Council Resolution passed this afternoon that sent the clear message of what the international community hopes the Taliban can deliver to move forward, especially freedom of travel.”
“The Taliban have made safe passage commitments and the world will stick to their commitments.”
Thousands of Western allies also remain in the war-torn country.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Marc Garneau, estimated that there are approximately 1,250 Canadian citizens, permanent residents or family members in the country.
“We will talk to Pakistan to tell them that if anyone arrives at this border or other neighboring countries, we would like them to facilitate entry. And of course our embassies and consulates are waiting to process them to get there. those in Canada, ”he said, according to CTV news.
On Friday, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace estimated that between 800 and 1,100 Afghans working with the British and could be evacuated would not leave the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Tuesday that there are between 10,000 and 40,000 local officials working in Afghanistan and that they can be evacuated to the European country.
“For us the focus right now is local staff and it’s not 300 people, they probably look like 10 to 40,000 people, and we’ll have to see how many of them want to leave the country and how many don’t,” he said.
“As we’ve seen, no one makes the decision to leave their home lightly.”