- Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday and sought the unconditional surrender of the government.
- The Pentagon spent $80 billion in to train and equip Afghan forces over the past 20 years.
- The U.S. Embassy in Kabul instructed Americans to “shelter in place” as airport came under fire.
WASHINGTON – The status of American diplomats in Afghanistan remained in flux late Sunday as U.S. troops scrambled to secure the airport in Kabul and Taliban fighters entered the capital city.
The State Department said it had evacuated “almost all” embassy staff to the airport, hours after an earlier security alert urged U.S. citizens to “shelter in place” amid reports of gunfire at the facility on the outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital city.
The embassy’s security alert came as U.S. troops were evacuating diplomatic staff from the embassy to the airport and as the Taliban entered Kabul, seemingly poised to take over the government.
“The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly,” the U.S. Embassy notice said. “There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place.”
Hours later, the State Department said America’s top diplomat in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, was among those who had been “relocated” to the airport.
“Almost all embassy personnel have now relocated from the embassy compound to a facility on the Hamid Karzai International Airport,” a State Department spokesperson said. “The American flag has been lowered from the U.S. Embassy compound and is now securely located with embassy staff.”
The agency spokesperson said Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been “in close, regular contact” with Wilson who is now based at the airport.
In a joint statement issued Sunday evening, the Pentagon and State Department said U.S. officials were “completing a series of steps” to secure the airport and allow “the safe departure of U.S. and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights.
“Over the next 48 hours, we will have expanded our security presence to nearly 6,000 troops, with a mission focused solely on facilitating these efforts and will be taking over air traffic control,” the joint statement said. In the coming days, “we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals.”
The Biden administration is also scrambling to evacuate of thousands of Afghans who worked with American troops and are eligible for special immigrant visas.
Earlier on Sunday, Blinken cast the evacuation as part of an orderly drawdown, even as a sense of chaos and fear engulfed Kabul.
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“Right now, the plan that we’re putting into effect is to move personnel from the embassy compound in the capital to a location at the airport to ensure that they can operate safely and securely,” Blinken said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Asked if the embassy was being shuttered, Blinken did not directly answer the question. “The compound itself, our folks are leaving there and moving to the airport,” he said, adding that a “core diplomatic presence” would remain in the country.
The earlier security alert said Americans who wanted assistance leaving Afghanistan would have to register through a repatriation form and should not try to contact the embassy.
Hamid Karzai International Airport, on the north side of the city, is just miles from the U.S. Embassy. Helicopters ferry passengers to the airport in a matter of minutes.
Blinken flatly rejected comparisons to America’s ignominious withdraw from Vietnam in 1975, which ended with iconic images of U.S. helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the embassy in Saigon.
“This is manifestly not Saigon,” Blinken argued, characterizing the drawdown of embassy and other personnel as “very deliberate.”
More: Many fear Taliban will again end Afghan human rights, support terrorism
But the Biden administration was clearly caught off guard by the Taliban’s rapid advances in recent days as the militant Islamic group took over a slew of provincial capitals across the country and encircled Kabul. President Joe Biden set an Aug. 31 deadline to withdrawal all U.S. forces from Afghanistan and bring an end to the 20-year conflict.
President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, according to Abdullah Abdullah, head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, who posted a video online.
“We’ve now created a situation where, as we get to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we are surrendering Afghanistan to the terrorist organization that housed al-Qaida,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said on ABC.
Cheney said that Biden’s decision to withdrawal all U.S. forces is catastrophic but that he is not solely to blame. She noted that former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set the withdrawal in motion after signing a deal with the Taliban, under which the group agreed to renounce its ties to al-Qaida and the U.S. agreed to drawdown all forces.
Cheney recalled that Trump had even invited Taliban leaders to the U.S. for secret meetings at Camp David, although he later canceled that session.
“They walked down this path of legitimizing the Taliban, of perpetuating this fantasy, telling the American people that the Taliban were a partner for peace,” Cheney said. “President Trump told us that the Taliban was going to fight terror. Secretary Pompeo told us that the Taliban was going to renounce al-Qaida. None of that has happened.”
Cheney and others have argued the U.S. should have kept a small contingent of several thousand American troops in Afghanistan indefinitely to keep the Taliban and al-Qaida at bay. Others have said that would have reignited deadly combat operations pitting U.S. forces against the militant Islamic group.
On Saturday, Biden announced an increased deployment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan to ensure “an orderly and safe” drawdown and evacuate U.S. personnel as well as Afghans who helped American forces during the 20-year war.
Three battalions, about 3,000 troops, were being sent to Kabul to bolster about 1,000 U.S. forces already on the ground. On Sunday, the Pentagon authorized an additional 1,000 service members to deploy to Afghanistan amid the evacuation. On Saturday morning, Biden approved a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to tap a battalion of a reserve force from the 82nd Airborne Brigade Combat Team to help with the evacuation, the official said. In all, there will be 6,000 U.S. troops in Kabul in coming days.
Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday and sought the unconditional surrender of the central government, The Associated Press reported, as Afghans and foreigners alike raced for the exit. Helicopters buzzed overhead as the U.S. evacuated personnel from the embassy, according to the AP.
In its stunning military rout, the Taliban faced little to no resistance from the Afghan security forces, even though the Biden administration had repeatedly touted their ability to fend off the insurgent group. The Pentagon spent $80 billion in to train and equip Afghan forces over the past 20 years.
Speaking to CNN, Blinken acknowledged the “hollowness” of the Afghan security forces, even as he defended the president’s decision to withdrawal all U.S. forces.
“From the perspective of our strategic competitors around the world, there’s nothing they would like more than see us in Afghanistan for another five, 10, 20 years,” he said. “It’s simply not in the national interest.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
