US ramps up airlift to evacuate more than 17,000 in a day in race to hit August 31 withdrawal deadline as Biden faces increased pressure from G7 allies today to push beyond it despite Taliban warning of consequences
The US has ramped up airlifts to evacuate more than 17,000 people in a day from Afghanistan and Joe Biden has finally ordered troops to rescue Americans outside Kabul airport in a race against time before the August 31 withdrawal deadline.
The President is under international pressure to extend the rescue mission as thousands of people trying to flee the Taliban remain stranded outside the airport.
Biden will join other G7 leaders for an emergency meeting later today to discuss the deadline after Nato begged the president to re-think his plan to avert a humanitarian disaster.
It comes as it was reported that CIA Director William Burns went to Kabul on Monday for a secret meeting with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar. The discussions were likely to have centered around the August 31 date, according to The Washington Post.
The US pulled off its biggest haul of evacuations since the crisis started over the last 24 hours to early Monday morning, with 28 military jets rescuing around 10,400 people. Another 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660.
Meanwhile, US Special Operations rescued 16 Americans from an unspecified location around two hours outside Kabul. The Pentagon revealed it was carried out by helicopter without disclosing further details.
Biden had previously expressed doubts to his commanders about venturing outside the airport because he didn't want a Black Hawk Down-style incident, sources revealed today.
But despite the new urgency, Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, who is chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warned that Biden is 'unlikely' to get all US citizens and their allies out by the deadline.
He told reporters after a committee meeting Monday that a full evacuation was 'possible' but 'very unlikely given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated, the number of SIV's, the number of others who are members of the Afghan press, civil society leaders, women leaders.'
US soldiers guard Kabul airport on Tuesday as thousands of desperate Afghans crowd at the gates in the hopes of fleeing the Taliban
An American soldier carries a small child during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Saturday
An American solder plays with a boy at a security checkpoint at Kabul airport on Friday
A US soldier hands out supplies to little children at Kabul airport on Saturday
A military plane takes off from the airport on Monday. 28 military jets rescued 10,400 people in the 24 hours to early Monday. Another 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660.
A US soldier hands out bottles of water to Afghan evacuees at Kabul airport on Saturday
In surreal scenes, Taliban fighters are stood on top of containers doing crowd control for British soldiers on the other side of the fence
Crowds of people outside Kabul airport on Tuesday, some holding children, others holding papers (left) and another group standing inside a moat around the perimeter
In a conference call with military officials last week, President Biden said he didn't want rescue missions to turn into 'Black Hawk Down,' when US choppers were shot down in Somalia in 1993
Rescue efforts became increasingly urgent today as Spain warned it would have leave people behind and France said it would stop airlifts on Thursday - five days before the deadline.
The French government said if the U.S. stuck to the deadline, it would have to end evacuations from the airport on Thursday.
Spain said it would not be able to rescue all Afghans who served Spanish missions.
'It is a very frustrating situation for everyone, because even those who reach Kabul, access to the airport is very complicated,' Defence Minister Margarita Robles said.
Britain has said it will lobby at the virtual G7 summit this afternoon for a longer presence.
About 50,000 foreigners and Afghans have fled the country from Kabul's airport since the Taliban swept into power 10 days ago, according to the US government.
A White House official said Monday that about 48,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul since the intensified airlift began on August 14.
Shima, a 30-year-old Afghan woman, choked up as she displayed a picture on her mobile phone of her two daughters, aged six and 10.
'My girls are in Afghanistan and I am in America,' she told reporters shortly after arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
'I'm dead, dead,' Shima said as she began to sob and covered her face with her hands. 'I'm dead.'
Shima, who goes by a single name, arrived with her husband but they were unable to immediately bring their daughters with them.
Romal Haiderzada, 27, was also among a group of Afghans who were flown to the United States on Monday for resettlement.
'We came from Kabul,' said Haiderzada, who received what is known as a special immigrant visa.
'You know the situation is not so good these days since the Taliban came,' he said.
'Many people came from Afghanistan because we had worked with US soldiers in Bagram,' he said in a reference to a former US military base north of Kabul.
'That's why we feel unsafe,' he said. 'We just came here.'
Haiderzada said it felt 'great' to be in the United States and he expressed his gratitude 'for their solutions for people that have problems.'
'I feel that, thank you,' he said.
Haiderzada said he had spent time at US bases in Qatar and Germany before finally being flown to the United States on Monday.
Jan, a 21-year-old Afghan-American man who had been in Afghanistan visiting his family, said the situation at the airport in Kabul was 'kind of dangerous.'
'Very crowded,' Jan said. 'Everyone was trying to leave the country... because they wanted to be safe.'
Crowds of people lining up to get to Kabul airport are seen from space
Gridlocked traffic outside the entrance to Kabul airport on Tuesday
A family evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, talk to the media as they walk through the terminal before boarding a bus after they arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Virginia, USA
A woman embraces her sister-in-law (L) as she arrives with other Afghan refugees on a flight at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia on Monday
The President's about-face in allowing troops to carry out rescue missions outside the airport comes after Republican lawmakers said it was 'humiliating' that American soldiers were behind the walls while British, French and German special forces were speeding into downtown Kabul in armored cars.
As recently as Sunday, he had warned that Islamic State posed an immediate threat to US soldiers at the airport.
'These troops and innocent civilians at the airport face the risk of attack from ISIS from a distance, even though we're moving back the perimeter significantly,' Biden said in a speech at the White House.
'We're working hard and as fast as we can to get people out. That's our mission. That's our goal.
'What I'm not going to do is talk about the tactical changes we're making to make sure we maintain as much security as we can,' he added.
Those concerns were echoed by Schiff who told Fox News: 'I think the threat to the airport is very real, very substantial ... this would make a very attractive target for ISIS ... Whenever you have a mass gathering like that, it is an opportunity for improvised and other explosive devices.'
The Taliban, who ended two decades of war with an astonishingly swift rout of government forces, had been publicly tolerant of the evacuation effort.
But on Monday they described next week's cut-off date as a 'red line'.
'If the US or UK were to seek additional time to continue evacuations - the answer is no... there would be consequences,' spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Sky News.
The Taliban achieved their stunning victory thanks to Biden pulling out nearly all American troops from Afghanistan, following through on a deal struck with the Taliban by then-president Donald Trump.
However Biden was forced to redeploy thousands of troops after the fall of Kabul to oversee the airlift.
The US has evacuated 48,000 people from Kabul since August 14. Above, a family boards a US Air Force plane during an evacuation from the Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul on Monday
The rush to leave Kabul has sparked harrowing scenes and left at least eight people dead.
Some of have been crushed to death and at least one, a youth football player, died after falling off a plane.
The German defence ministry said Monday an Afghan soldier was killed and three others wounded in a firefight with unknown assailants.
Robles, the Spanish defence minister, said the security situation was getting worse.
'The Taliban are becoming more aggressive, there is gunfire, violence is more obvious,' she said in and interview with news radio Cadena Ser.
'The situation is frankly dramatic and besides, with each passing day, it is worse because people are conscious that time is running out.'
The Taliban are currently working on forming a government, but two sources within the movement told AFP there would be no announcement on a cabinet until the last US soldier has left Afghanistan.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that US troops are 'not operating outside the perimeter of the airport' on Monday, but some evacuations outside the airport have happened
The Taliban have repeatedly claimed to be different from their 1990s incarnation, and have declared an amnesty for government forces and officials.
But an intelligence assessment conducted for the United Nations said militants were going door-to-door hunting former government officials and those who worked with US and NATO forces.
In the capital and other cities, the former insurgents have enforced some sense of calm, with their fighters patrolling the streets and manning checkpoints.
The Taliban are also intent on quashing the last notable Afghan military resistance to their rule, made up of ex-government forces in the Panjshir Valley, north of the capital.
The Panjshir has long been known as an anti-Taliban bastion.
One of the leaders of the movement, named the National Resistance Front, is the son of famed anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Another is Amrullah Saleh, a vice president and head of intelligence in the fallen government.
The Taliban have said they have massed forces outside the valley, but would prefer a negotiated end to the stand off.
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