By Robert Burns and Ellen Knickmeyer
The U.S. military reported its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul's airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the evacuation.
Twenty-eight U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over the 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, a White House official said. The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of evacuation was due in part to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport.
“Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban,” Kirby said. “What we've seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport.”
President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said later at the White House that talks with the Taliban are continuing.
“We are in talks with the Taliban on a daily basis through both political and security channels,” he said, adding that ultimately it will be Biden's decision alone whether to continue military-led evacuation operations beyond Aug. 31.
After more than a week of evacuations plagued by major obstacles, including Taliban forces and crushing crowds that are making approaching the airport difficult and dangerous, the number of people flown out met — and exceeded — U.S. projections for the first time. The count was more than twice the 3,900 flown out in the previous 24 hours on U.S. military planes.
Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, head of U.S. Transportation Command, which manages the military aircraft that are executing the Kabul airlift, told a Pentagon news conference that more than 200 planes are involved, including aerial refueling planes, and that air crews are working round the clock to accelerate the evacuation.
“They're tired,” Lyons said of the crews. “They're probably exhausted in some cases.”
The Pentagon said it has added a fourth U.S. military base, in New Jersey, to three others — in Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin — that are prepared to temporarily house arriving Afghans. Maj. Gen. Hank Williams, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told reporters there are now about 1,200 Afghans at those military bases. The four bases combined are capable of housing up to 25,000 evacuees, Kirby said.
Biden said Sunday he would not rule out extending the evacuation beyond Aug. 31, the date he had set for completing the withdrawal of troops and formally ending the nearly 20-year U.S. military role in Afghanistan. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to press Biden for an extension to get out the maximum number of foreigners and Afghan allies possible. Biden is to face the U.S.'s G-7 allies in a virtual summit on Afghanistan Tuesday.
But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in an interview with Sky News, said that Aug. 31 is a “red line” the U.S. must not cross and that extending the American presence would “provoke a reaction.”
Since the Taliban seized the capital Aug. 15, completing a stunning rout of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military, the U.S. has been carrying out the evacuation in coordination with the Taliban, who have held off on attacking under a 2020 withdrawal deal with the Trump administration.
Monday's warning signaled the Taliban could insist on shutting down the airlifts out of the Kabul airport in just over a week. Lawmakers, refugee groups, veterans' organizations and U.S. allies have said ending the evacuation then could strand countless Afghans and foreigners still hoping for flights out.
In remarks at the White House on Sunday, one week after the Taliban completed their victory by capturing Kabul, Biden defended his decision to end the war and insisted that getting all Americans out of the country would have been difficult in the best of circumstances at any other time. Critics have said Biden waited too long to begin organizing an evacuation, which then became captive to the fear and panic set off by the government's sudden collapse.
Biden said Sunday military discussions are underway on potentially extending the airlift beyond Aug. 31. “Our hope is we will not have to extend, but there are discussions,” he said, suggesting the possibility that the Taliban will be consulted.
Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of about 37,000 people. The U.S. military says it has the capacity to fly between 5,000 and 9,000 people out per day.
Biden also asserted, without a full explanation, that U.S. forces have managed to improve access to the airport for Americans and others seeking to get on flights. He suggested that the perimeter had been extended, widening a “safe zone.”
But a firefight just outside the airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said. It was the latest in days of often-lethal turmoil outside the airport. People coming in hopes of escaping Taliban rule face sporadic gunfire, beatings by the Taliban, and crowds that have trampled many.
Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a former U.S. intelligence official and one of many lawmakers working with Americans and Afghans scrambling to evacuate family and colleagues, urged U.S. forces in a series of tweets Monday to keep the airport gates open and approachable.
The current set-up was leaving Afghans to seek “every connection they can muster” to get through the gates, a process that seemed to be disadvantaging Afghan women, Slotkin said.
Biden and his top aides have repeatedly cited their concern that extremist groups in Afghanistan will attempt to exploit the chaos around the Kabul airport.
The Biden administration has given no firm estimate of the number of Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total between 10,000 and 15.000.
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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Lolita C. Baldor, Ellen Knickmeyer, Hope Yen, Alexandra Jaffe, Jonathan Lemire and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
Updated on August 23, 2021, at 4:14 p.m. ET with the latest details.
