US President Joe Biden said he hopes to complete evacuation from Afghanistan by August 31 as he warned of threat of potential terrorist attack.
US President Joe Biden said he hopes to complete evacuation from Afghanistan by the end of the month but warned of threat of terrorist attacks against the crowded Kabul airport.
Speaking in the White House, Joe Biden said his “hope is we will not have to extend [the deadline]”, and complete the task by August 31, the date agreed with the Taliban.
Underlining why US officials are keen to complete the mission as soon as possible, Biden warned that Islamic State extremists known as ISIS-K pose a constant threat.
"We know that terrorists may seek to exploit the situation," he said. "It's still a dangerous operation."
When asked by reporters what his reply was to foreign leaders asking for more time, Joe Biden added, "We'll see what we can do."
The White House said late Sunday that the US has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 30,300 people on military and coalition flights from Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control of the nation last weekend.
With the number of evacuees steadily rising, scenes outside the Kabul airport have turning increasingly chaotic with Afghans and foreign nations scrambling to flee the Taliban rule. Joe Biden acknowledged the searing scenes of Afghans crowding the airport in desperation to escape the militants but said this had to be accepted, given the situation.
"There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images you see," he said.
In an effort to ramp up the evacuation plan from Afghanistan, the US government ordered six airlines -- American Airlines, Atlas, Delta, Omni, Hawaiian and United -- to provide 18 passenger planes, supplementing an armada of Air Force cargo planes.
The rarely invoked Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) order will increase the flow of people once they get out of Afghanistan to US bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and are then flown on to third countries in a rapidly expanding global operation. The civilian airliners will not be required to fly to Kabul itself.
With land border crossings closed, the Kabul airport has become the only way out of the country for many people. Thousands of US troops have been flown in to secure the Afghan capital’s airport, while the Taliban control the surrounding city.
The US President has faced a lot of criticism for his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. However, in his remarks from the White House Biden again defended what he said had been a hard but necessary decision to order the immediate evacuation of Americans, even at the short-term cost of chaos.
"At the end of the day, if we didn't leave Afghanistan now, when would we?" he asked.
(With inputs from AFP)
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