Military advisers have informed the White House that the decision must be made before Tuesday to have enough time to withdraw the 5,800 troops currently on the ground, as well as their equipment and weapons. If the president agrees, the military plans “a few more days” to try to evacuate as many people as possible before the withdrawal of U.S. forces begins, possibly later this week.
As of Monday, Biden was still deciding whether to extend the deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops, CNN reported. Several advisers to the president have advised against an extension, citing the security situation on the ground. Officials have spent the past few days monitoring possible terrorist threats, citing “persistent” and credible information that the chaotic situation outside the airfield has created a target for ISIS-K and other organizations.
The Pentagon’s decision-making ultimatum for Biden follows the Taliban’s statement that the U.S. should eliminate all forces by Aug. 31, a deadline that U.S. military officials say they still have planned. comply, with an accelerated pace of evacuation flights now taking thousands of people out. of Afghanistan every day and even the U.S. military entering Kabul, if necessary, to retake the people. While U.S. national security has expressed optimism that it will not have to extend beyond Aug. 31, Biden has said that if necessary, the mission to extract U.S. citizens and some Afghans could continue through September. .
For now, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the military is working with the August 31 deadline in mind. “This is the mission assigned to us by the commander-in-chief … this is what we are trying to execute,” Kirby told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
Earlier in the day, a Taliban spokesman said that if U.S. troops were still in the country after that, “our leadership will make the right and necessary decisions.[s]. “
Biden was asked what he would say if G7 leaders, who are expected to press for enlargement, ask the US to stay longer. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said he would tell his counterparts.
“The medium”
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan expressed optimism that the United States can remove all Americans who want to leave the country before the August 31 deadline. “In the days to come, we believe we have the means to get the American citizens who want to leave Kabul out,” Sullivan said during a White House briefing on Monday.
With the clock ticking, the Pentagon said Monday that U.S. and coalition planes had evacuated about 16,000 people from Kabul in the past 24 hours, and the U.S. military was carrying just under 11,000.
U.S. officials have declined to say how many Americans have been evacuated, but according to a source familiar with a “SitRep” report from the administration, at 7:30 a.m. Monday in the ET, the evacuation operation had brought 4,293 U.S. citizens out of Afghanistan from U.S. flights. it began.
The source said the report shows that 369 Americans had “demonstrated since midnight, Kabul time” that day, talking about the nature of the 24-hour effort. The report also notes that 1,000 U.S. citizens have been contacted to travel to the airport to be prosecuted, “but some may be out of Afghanistan.”
Sullivan told reporters Monday that one of the reasons the United States cannot be sure of the number of Americans in Afghanistan is that they are not required to register their presence at the embassy when they enter the country or notify the embassy when they leave.
The well-known source said the report says that “since the start of operations” 20,156 Afghans have been evacuated along with 642 third-country nationals or people of unknown origin. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday they do not share this information publicly because they do not want to give rough or outdated information.
As the evacuation takes place, Sullivan said the U.S. is in contact with the Taliban on a daily basis through political and security channels. He warned that, regardless of the Taliban’s warnings, it will be Biden’s decision, and only Biden’s, whether to keep any U.S. troops in Afghanistan past the end of the month to aid in the evacuations.
“As I said, we are collaborating with the Taliban, consulting with the Taliban on all aspects of what is happening in Kabul right now … We will continue these talks with them. Ultimately, it will be the president’s decision on how to proceed. that., of no one else, “he said.
“When it’s needed”
As the evacuation mission of U.S. citizens, visa applicants and other vulnerable Afghans accelerated dramatically over the weekend, the Pentagon said Monday that the U.S. military has been entering the city of Kabul to extract stranded people and take them to the airport as needed.
Kirby stressed that these instances do not occur on a “regular” basis, but that sometimes when there is a need and there is the capacity to meet that need, our field commanders are doing what they believe they should to help Americans get to the airport. ”
Aside from a previously reported situation, where four U.S. military Chinook helicopters pulled 169 people off the roof of the Baron Hotel and transported them to the airport last Thursday, there has been an “additional case” in which s ‘have used helicopters to take the evacuees to Kabul. airport, Kirby said.
He did not provide details on where and when this instance occurred, but said no additional troops will be sent before Aug. 31 to help with such extraction missions.
Last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said U.S. troops based at the airport did not have the capacity to go to the city to retrieve “large groups” of people who needed to reach the aerodrome.
Speaking on the August 31 deadline, Sullivan told reporters on Monday that “the question is: are we on track to meet our goals of this operation? Get our people out, so many of these Afghans that they helped us and so many of these Afghans and we believe we are. “
But Afghans employed by the embassy have told CNN that their attempts to get to the airport and leave the country have been brutally damaging and unsuccessful, or they have managed to get to the airport, but they have been bloodied and mentally distressed to get there.
Asked about his accounts and his attempts to reach evacuation flights, State Department spokesman Price said staff with local employment “is absolutely a priority.”
“They are absolutely part of our plans. And that commitment to them, to their safety and security, is something that does not diminish in any way,” he said in a briefing on Monday. Price said they have been able to relocate locally employed staff members, but did not give specific numbers.
Worried
Price claimed that staff employed locally at the U.S. embassy in Kabul had not been evacuated to the airport with U.S. personnel “just because they were not generally on the embassy grounds that day.”
“When the embassy was evacuated and our staff began heading from the Kabul embassy to the safe installation of the airport grounds, many, if not all, of our locally engaged staff they were not present at the embassy at the time, working remotely due to the volatile security situation, many were at home, not working, “he said.
CNN reported last week that the embassy sent a warning on Wednesday to thousands of local workers telling them they could go to the airport to do an evacuation flight, but some of the Afghans who arrived at the airport were bloodied and distressed, as they had lost most of their belongings along the way, according to various sources familiar with the matter.
Others decided they didn’t even want to continue the dangerous journey, even though they desperately want to leave the country. Still others who took risks had to go back after facing unsustainable situations.
“I decided I would rather have the Taliban shoot me in the head to get stuck in this situation,” said an Afghan who worked at the embassy for years, describing his trip to CNN.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.