“There is a strong possibility that ISIS-K will attempt to carry out an attack at the airport,” a U.S. defense official told CNN. A senior diplomat in Kabul said he was aware of a credible but not immediate threat from the Islamic State against the Americans at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Two U.S. defense officials described the military effort to establish “alternative routes” for people to reach Kabul airport and its gateways, and one said these new routes will be available for northerners. -qualified Americans, third nationals and Afghans.
One official said the Taliban are aware of the new effort and are coordinating with the United States.
The Pentagon has been monitoring the situation around the airport, aware that crowds of people on the ground and around the airfield are creating a target for ISIS-K and other organizations, which may use car bombs or suicide bombs to attack, the second official said. Mortar attacks are another possible threat.
Details of the plan remain close, but generally sketched details call for people to follow new routes and access points in coordination with the Taliban on the ground to try to disperse the concentration of large crowds or avoid crowds, they said. say the two officials. U.S. personnel would be able to observe the movement of people to ensure safety, but the official would not specify whether this involves direct observation by nearby troops, as well as the use of intelligence sensors. license.
“The idea is to get as many people out as fast as we can,” Kirby said. “That’s what it’s focused on. In trying to fulfill that mission, we’re incorporating a whole wealth of information about what the security environment looks like.”
Biden and his national security team met in the situation room on Saturday morning to discuss “the security situation in Afghanistan and counterterrorism operations, including ISIS-K,” the White House said. “They discussed the massive logistical operation to evacuate U.S. citizens and their families, SIV applicants and their families and vulnerable Afghans on both U.S. military aircraft and charter flights and coalition flights.”
U.S. intelligence officials previously told CNN that ISIS-K members include “a small number of veteran jihadists from Syria and other foreign terrorist fighters,” saying the U.S. had identified 10 to 15 of its main agents in Afghanistan. The group’s name comes from its area terminology that includes Afghanistan and Pakistan: “Khorasan.”
Biden noted that ISIS in Afghanistan has been the sworn enemy of the Taliban, with whom U.S. officials have been constantly coordinating and communicating about access to the airport.
“I have said this all along,” Biden added, “We will maintain a laser focus on our counterterrorism mission, working in close coordination with our allies and our partners and all those with an interest in ensuring region stability.”
“The best job they can”
Shortly before the president met to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others on Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul sent a security alert saying that “due to potential security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport, we advise US citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates in at this time, unless you receive individual instructions from a representative of the United States government to do so. “
At the Pentagon, where an official told CNN on Saturday that evacuations had slowed in the past 24 hours, spokesman Kirby said the State Department “is doing the best job possible to advise Americans who have not yet arrived at the airport, “the situation seems to be around the airport, that would be the most prudent.”
“If you’re American and you’re at a door, they’ll let you in,” Kirby said Saturday.
But the airport’s doors have been closed for “brief periods of time” for the past 24 hours, General Hank Taylor, deputy director of Joint Operations Personnel for the Pentagon briefing with Kirby, told reporters.
“There have been short durations over the last 24 hours where the doors have been closed to allow the right people to get in and out of those doors,” Taylor said.
The president said Friday that there is no indication that U.S. citizens have been prevented from passing through the airport, but acknowledged the risks involved in the evacuation mission, saying that “it is dangerous, it carries risks for the armed forces and has been carried out in difficult circumstances “. ”
Biden stressed that he could not promise what the end result would be, or “that it will be without risk of loss.” But he added that “as commander-in-chief, I can assure you that I will mobilize all necessary resources.”
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Kirby did not rule out taking other measures to get the Americans to arrive at Kabul airport, including having U.S. military troops enter the city and retrieve them, if necessary. On Friday, the Pentagon revealed that it had used three Chinook CH-47 helicopters to retrieve 169 Americans who had gathered at a hotel about 200 meters from an airport gate, wary of the risks involved in trying to walk through. crowds outside amid allegations of violence. and Taliban beatings.
“We will continue to explore options to help Americans as needed,” Kirby said. “We will do it here at the Pentagon. If we need to do something different from what we are already doing to make it easier for them to access the airport … we will surely consider these options.”
“Fighting against time and space”
But Kirby acknowledged the challenge facing the military as it is working towards the August 31 deadline to leave the country. Biden has indicated that it is possible that the United States will have to stay beyond that date if not all Americans have been evacuated yet.
“I think we’ve been very honest about knowing that we’re fighting time and space,” Kirby said. “That’s really what it is, this is the race we’re in right now and we’re trying to do it as quickly and safely as possible.”
The pace of the evacuation effort slowed after the bottleneck developed on Friday as a space at Al Udeid air base in Qatar, one of the leading destinations for flights, close to capacity, which forced the United States to look elsewhere.
Only 6 C-17s have left Kabul International Airport in the past 24 hours and transported some 1,600 people, a defense official told CNN, a drastic reduction in the pace of evacuations as a result of the delay from 8 a.m. Friday on flights.
That figure was a sharp drop from the 6,000 people who left Kabul during the previous 24-hour period on 16 C-17 and C-130 flights, according to figures Taylor gave to reporters during a Pentagon briefing on Friday. .
On Saturday, Taylor told reporters that on military planes and charter planes together, approximately 3,800 people have been evacuated in the past 24 hours.
Since the end of July, 22,000 people have been evacuated, and 17,000 have flown during the week since Aug. 14, Taylor said. Of the 17,000 evacuees since Aug. 14, 2,500 are U.S. citizens, Taylor said.
C-17 military planes are now “moving between Qatar and Germany,” Taylor said, and in the past 24 hours, three flights from Kabul landed at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC. Some Afghans will move to Fort Bliss for later trials, Taylor added.
On Friday, U.S. officials announced a dramatic expansion in the number of countries that will help transit Americans or temporarily host Afghans, including Germany, where the first evacuation flight of some 350 people arrived at the U.S. air base. Ramstein.