One official also revealed that U.S. special operations forces set up a “secret gate” at the airport and set up “call centers” to guide Americans through the evacuation process.
Officials said the Americans were notified to meet at pre-established “meeting points” near the airport, where the Taliban would check their credentials and take them a short distance to a door manned by northern forces. -Americans who were on foot to let them in amid a huge crowd of Afghans who want to flee.
U.S. troops were able to watch as the Americans approached with their Taliban escorts as they advanced through the crowd, presumably willing to intervene in case anything happened.
Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the agreements, which so far have not been revealed because the United States was concerned about the Taliban’s reaction to any publicity, as well as the threat of attacks. of ISIS-K if its agents realized that the Americans were escorted in groups, officials said.
The ISIS division, a sworn enemy of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Kabul airport gate last week that killed 13 members of the US service and more than 170 Afghans.
The United States has maintained diplomatic and military contacts with the Taliban for years through political talks and non-conflict efforts, but the secret evacuation agreement between the militant group and the U.S. military reflects a level of tactical coordination. unprecedented. Although it is not known if there is any connection, CIA Director William Burns paid a very unusual visit last week to Kabul, where he met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar during the Biden administration. he fought for air transport operations to run smoothly.
Throughout the evacuation, Biden administration officials stressed that the Taliban was cooperating and senior officials repeatedly stressed that the militant group had pledged to provide a “safe passage” to the Americans.
Taliban escort missions happened “several times a day,” according to one official. One of the key meeting points was an Interior Ministry building just outside the airport gates, where nearby U.S. forces could easily observe the U.S. approach. The Americans received notifications for various messages about where to meet.
“It worked, it worked really well,” an official said of the deal. As of Monday, when the U.S. completed its withdrawal, more than 122,000 people had been transferred from Hamid Karzai International Airport since July and more than 6,000 U.S. civilians were evacuated.
It is unclear whether the Taliban who were checking credentials during these efforts rejected any of the Americans. There have been numerous reports that some Americans with passports and U.S. green card holders were removed from Taliban checkpoints near the airport and were sometimes beaten.
In another separate secret agreement that was not disclosed until the operation ended, troops from the elite joint special operations command and other special operations units were also on the ground assisting the Americans. to escape by contacting them through “call centers,” one official said.
Special operations forces set up their own secret gate at the airport and were sometimes in direct communication with the Americans telling them exactly where to walk to find the gate and be able to enter the airport.
The secret gateway allowed the U.S. military to offer some protection to Americans by avoiding the publicly known and highly vulnerable gates of Afghanistan’s only airstrip for international flights.
As the evacuation began, thousands of people rushed to the airport gates in hopes of getting inside and flying, raising concerns about a terrorist attack centered on one of these. tickets.
On Sunday, August 22, when he confirmed his decision not to extend the evacuation deadline beyond August 31, President Joe Biden acknowledged the growing threat that ISIS-K poses to the airport.
“Threats out of doors”
“Every day we are on the ground is another day that we know ISIS-K is trying to head to the airport and attack both Allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said.
Last Wednesday, a U.S. defense official told CNN that, based on a very specific stream of threats, it seemed clear that ISIS-K planned to attack crowds outside the airport. The U.S. embassy in Kabul warned U.S. citizens at the airport gates to “leave immediately” and noted “security threats outside the gates.”
On Thursday, the ISIS outbreak attacked with its suicide bomber.
U.S. Commander-in-Chief General Frank McKenzie publicly revealed for the first time the involvement of special operations forces at a news conference Monday, saying those forces helped evacuate more than 1,000 North American citizens. Americans and more than 2,000 Afghans “through phone calls, carriers and escorts.”
Special operations forces “went so far as to help attract more than 1,064 U.S. citizens and 2,017 SIVs or Afghans at risk, and 127 third-country nationals through phone calls, carriers, and escorts,” he said. But in public comments, McKenzie did not specify the involvement of JSOC, which includes forces conducting the most dangerous counterterrorism missions, such as the Army Delta Force and the SEALS Navy.