Hundreds of Americans are believed to still be in Afghanistan but U.S. officials are giving no indication that the massive U.S.-led evacuation effort in Kabul will be extended past President Biden’s self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline.
The operation, based at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), was to help as many people as possible escape from Afghanistan now that the hard-line Taliban are once again in control of the country, Pentagon officials said.
“While operations in Afghanistan will conclude soon, the [Department of Defense] effort to support the interagency [mission] is ongoing,” Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, of the Joint Staff, told reporters on Monday.
Pentagon officials on Monday released the latest evacuation figures coming from Afghanistan. Since the operation began, more than 122,000 people have been flown out of the country. That number includes 5,400 American citizens who were in Afghanistan when the U.S.-backed government and army collapsed during the Taliban’s lightning-fast advance.
Pentagon officials said there will be a government effort to help Americans get out of Afghanistan after the withdrawal is complete on Tuesday.
“The State Department is going to continue to work across many different levers to facilitate that transportation,” chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. “Right now, we do not anticipate a military role.”
With reports of Americans being unable to make it past the Taliban’s cordon around the airfield, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said President Biden should extend the withdrawal timeline.
“I cannot believe that our president has watched the human suffering that has resulted from this botched process and decided to double-down on his arbitrary, unrealistic deadline — knowing that he is leaving, quite literally, countless Americans and Afghans who helped us, behind,” Mr. Inhofe said in a statement. “The decisions of the Biden administration leading up to this disastrous evacuation will scar a generation of Afghan women and children — if they are lucky enough to survive.”
The situation on the ground at Kabul’s only international airport remains tense in the waning days of the massive airlift. On Monday in Kabul, militants fired at least five rockets at the airport only days after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and injured 18 others.
Three of the rockets didn’t make it to the airport at all while one struck the airfield without effect. Troops destroyed one of the rockets using a weapon known as a C-RAM — Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar. First used by the Navy as an air defense weapon on ships, the trailer-mounted C-RAM detects, tracks and destroys targets using its rapid-fire Gatling gun.
On Sunday, U.S. officials launched a strike against suspected ISIS-K militants that may have killed innocent civilians. Pentagon officials said they are continuing to investigate but aren’t in a position to dispute claims that innocent bystanders may have been hit.
“No military on the face of the earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military,” Mr. Kirby said. “Nobody wants to see innocent lives taken.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.