U.S. Marines are preparing to receive evacuees arriving at an evacuation control center at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 19, 2021.
Sergeant. Víctor Mancilla | US Marine Corps via Reuters
U.S. defense officials say the military is looking for alternative ways to get Americans, Afghans and third-country nationals to Kabul airport safely following Islamic State threats, NBC News reports. .
Two defense officials told NBC News that they were following ISIS-specific threats against Kabul airport and those trying to get to the airport. With this, alternative ways are being developed to get people to the evacuation area, officials explained.
“We’re running an alternative path,” a defense official told NBC News. This includes gathering smaller groups of people at specific locations and then transporting them to the airport at intervals. The aim is to get there safely and make it easier to walk through the door with smaller groups of people.
The ISIS threat comes as President Joe Biden and his administration face criticism over how they handled the global evacuation of Afghanistan.
The withdrawal, which was announced by Biden earlier this year, has been plagued by multiple controversies, including people swarming the airport and making it almost impossible to get even some proper documentation from the country.
The U.S. embassy in Afghanistan on Saturday warned U.S. citizens not to travel to the airport “because of potential security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport.”
A White House official reported Saturday in the press pool that in the past 24 hours, six U.S. C-17 soldiers and 32 leasehold letters have left Kabul. The total number of passengers on these 38 flights is approximately 3,800. The White House official says the U.S. has evacuated about 17,000 people since Aug. 14.
A White House official also told the newsgroup that Biden met with his national security advisers on Saturday morning. These talks focused on the current security situation and counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, including ISIS issues. Large-scale evacuation was also discussed, the White House said.