US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about refugee programs for Afghans who have helped the US during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, on August 2, 2021.
Brendan Smialowski | Reuters
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that fewer than 1,000 U.S. citizens may be looking for evacuation from Afghanistan.
Blinken said the US is currently “aggressively approaching about 1,000 contacts several times a day through multiple communication channels” to determine if they still wish to leave and give them instructions on how to do so. The final number could be lower, however, Blinken said.
“The US government does not follow the movements of the Americans when they travel around the world,” said Blinken. “There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who have never signed up with the embassy, who ignored public evacuation instructions, and have not yet identified themselves,” he added.
“We have also found that many people who contact us and identify themselves as American citizens, even by filling out and submitting repatriation assistance forms, are in fact not US citizens, which may take some time to decide to verify,” to stay in Afghanistan, “said the country’s top diplomat.
Blinken added that the State Department has been in direct contact with an additional 500 Americans in the past 24 hours to provide instructions on how to safely get to the airport for evacuation.
Blinken’s press conference, his first since the Afghan government collapsed with the Taliban more than a week ago, comes as US and coalition forces step up emergency evacuation flights.
In the past 24 hours, Western forces evacuated 19,000 people from Kabul on 90 military cargo plane flights, which, according to the Pentagon, corresponds to a departure frequency every 39 minutes.
Evacuees wait to board a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 23, 2021.
Sgt. Isaiah Campbell | US Marine Corps | via Reuters
Since the mass evacuations began on August 14, around 82,300 people have been flown out of Afghanistan. Around 87,900 people have been evacuated since the end of July, including around 4,500 US citizens and their families.
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that 10,000 people are currently waiting for a flight at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Approximately 5,400 U.S. soldiers assist with evacuation efforts using nearly 200 U.S. military aircraft dedicated to the mission.
President Joe Biden reaffirmed Tuesday to leaders of the G-7, NATO, the United Nations and the European Union that the United States will withdraw its military from Afghanistan by the end of the month.
The president warned that staying in Afghanistan for extended periods of time poses serious risks to foreign troops and civilians. Biden said ISIS-K, an offshoot of the terrorist group based in Afghanistan, posed a growing threat to Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“Every day we are there is another day we know that ISIS-K is trying to attack the airport and target both US and Allied forces and innocent civilians,” he said.
Read more about developments in Afghanistan:
The Taliban said Tuesday that the group would no longer allow Afghan nationals to leave the country on evacuation flights, nor would they accept an extension of the exit period beyond the end of the month.
“We are not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave the country,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday.
“She [the Americans] have the opportunity, they have all the resources, they can take all the people who belong to them with them, but we will not allow Afghans to leave and we will not extend the deadline, “he said. Evacuations by foreign forces after August .31 would be a “violation” of the Biden government’s promise to end the US military’s mission in the country, Mujahid said.
