The Pentagon said, on Tuesday, that security at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan has become “much better” after the arrival of an additional 1,000 soldiers to participate in securing the airport, and the ongoing evacuations from there.
And Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, confirmed in an interview with CNN that the ministry believes that it can transfer from 5 to 9 thousand people per day, once the transfers of soldiers and equipment necessary to secure the airport are completed, adding that 700-800 people were transferred, Tuesday, from the airport. Among them are about 200 Americans.
Kirby did not reveal the exact number of Americans who are still in Afghanistan, but he said he believed there were “thousands”, adding that the number could reach 5-10 thousand Americans, adding that they could now “get out of their homes and head to the airport” after “Security has improved in Kabul”.
Kirby linked the conduct of the evacuations to weather conditions and security, but said, “We have the potential.”
Kirby said the department also wanted to ensure that civilian flights would be able to fly to and from the airport to pick up passengers, adding, “It is my understanding that some civilian flights have resumed.”
Kirby reiterated the Pentagon’s commitment to the security of “Afghan allies” who have provided assistance to the United States “throughout twenty years” of operations in that country, adding that the department has prepared enough places in three military bases to accommodate more than 22,000 Afghans.
There are more than 18,000 Afghans, with their families, who have applied for the “special visa” that cooperators with US forces are entitled to, but Kirby said that the final number may reach more than that, adding, “If we need additional places for them, we will prepare it.” “.
“We have a commitment to the security of these people and the security of their families, and we take our commitment seriously, and we want to help our colleagues at the State Department get these people to safety,” Kirby stressed.
Kirby confirmed that the commander of the US Central Command, General Kenneth McKenzie, met with representatives of the Taliban in the Qatari capital, Doha, and conveyed to them a message of the need to “not obstruct US operations to evacuate citizens at the airport.”
“If we are attacked, we will respond with force as we reinforce our forces at the airport,” the Pentagon spokesman stressed, adding, “Any attack on our people, or our operations at the airport, will be met with force, and this includes not only the Americans, but all of our allies.”
Things deteriorated in Kabul, which has a population of 6 million people, rapidly, on Sunday, with the Taliban taking control of it after seizing the regional capitals, during the past weeks, while President Ashraf Ghani left the country, and later said that he decided to leave “our blood is right.”
Hours after the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, the city’s airport appeared in complete chaos, after thousands of Afghans swept the runway, hoping to escape after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
After the “Taliban” movement imposed its control over the country, several pictures and videos spread of Afghans trying to escape from the rule of the movement that was expelled from power twenty years ago, the most prominent of which was a picture of an American military plane crowded with civilians fleeing Afghanistan.
