A life-threatening mistake by President Joe Biden’s administration handed the Taliban a “death list” to target Afghans who helped the United States, according to a report on Thursday, and admitted it could have happened when he asked her later at a White House briefing.
After the Taliban took control of Kabul, US officials gave the Islamic extremist group the names of US citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies so that they could enter the Taliban-controlled perimeter around the Taliban. Hamid Karzai International Airport, according to Politico.
The decision was reportedly made despite the Taliban’s notorious reputation for brutally executing Afghans who aided the U.S. military and other Western forces during the 9/11 war and occupation following the terrorist attacks. .
“Basically, they just put all these Afghans on a death list,” a U.S. defense official told Politico. “It’s scary and shocking and it makes you feel impure.”
During a press conference on Thursday’s deadly terror attack at Kabul airport, Biden acknowledged unspecified “occasions” when the U.S. military had contacted the Taliban to say, “For example, this bus arrives with the number of people “X”, formed by the following people. “
“And as far as I know, in these cases, most of it has happened. It has been let go, ”he said.
“But I can’t tell you for sure that there was a list of names. Maybe there were, but I don’t know any circumstances.”
Biden added: “That doesn’t mean it isn’t, it didn’t exist. That is, ‘Here are the names of 12 people. They’re coming. Let them pass. It could very well have happened.’
The shocking revelation came just days after it was revealed that Taliban death squads had gone “door to door” to pursue alleged Afghan “collaborators,” with tens of thousands of potentially at-risk U.S. allies.
The big White House miscalculation came up during a classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Politico said.
The closed-door meeting reportedly intensified when senior government officials tried to defend themselves from coordination with the Taliban, saying it was the best way to prevent a gunfight between troops. Americans and Taliban fighters at the airport.
The Biden administration has relied on the Taliban to provide security outside the airport and General Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command and co-administrator Peter Vasely, chief of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan , have referred to the Taliban. in both written and verbal communications as “our Afghan partners,” two defense officials told Politico.
After the fall of Kabul on August 15, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic team at the airport began giving Taliban lists of people the U.S. wanted to evacuate, Politico said.
“They had to do it because of the security situation that the White House created, as it allowed the Taliban to control everything that was at the airport,” a U.S. official said.
But after thousands of visa applicants began arriving at the airport, the State Department reportedly told these people to leave until they were allowed to enter and the lists given to the Taliban no longer included the names of the Taliban. no Afghan.
As of Wednesday, only people with U.S. passports and green cards were admitted to the airport and prosecuted for evacuation, the defense official told Politico.
A U.S. Central Command spokesman declined to comment, Politico said.