The latest on Afghanistan as US troop withdrawal deadline looms

The Biden administration’s evacuation efforts in Afghanistan have gained considerable momentum in recent days, now far exceeding the initial daily goals after a chaotic and disjointed start.

The White House said Tuesday morning that at least 12,700 people had been evacuated by 37 US military flights and 8,900 had been evacuated by coalition flights over the past 24 hours. The Pentagon added that there are “a little bit above 5,000” people at the airport in Kabul waiting to board flights, which are now leaving about every 45 minutes.

Additionally, two defense officials told CNN on Tuesday that the first US troops have started leaving the country as the evacuation effort enters its final week.

That’s an improvement on all fronts, but the US is still up against the clock. President Joe Biden will stick, for now, with the Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw US troops, according to a senior administration official.

For help understanding the situation on the ground, the What Matters newsletter turned to CNN Senior International Correspondent Sam Kiley, who is at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport while the evacuation efforts unfold.

Our conversation, conducted over the phone and lightly edited for flow, is below.

What Matters: You got into Afghanistan on Sunday. What was your impression when you first got on the ground?

SK: We arrived mid-afternoon on a Qatari flight and I was pleased and relieved to see quite large, well-ordered queues of people already being loaded onto aircraft from around the world.

So the kind of awful scenes that Clarissa (Ward) had witnessed on her way out in the very early stages of the evacuation were not being repeated by the time I got in. But there were very large numbers and there were also, of course, very large numbers of people pressed up against the walls outside, and indeed on that day — although we didn’t know it at the time, exactly — but on that day, seven people were killed in crushes against the walls. A lot of them close to the British military camp.

What Matters: The US evacuation effort has obviously ramped up in recent days. Are you seeing planes constantly coming in and out of the Kabul airport?

SK: Yeah. So there is a constant circulation of aircraft, mostly big cargo lifts, C-17s and these propeller planes or kind of NATO aircraft. There’s a small number of civilian aircraft. I’ve seen Kam Air, which is an Afghan airline that took several hundred people off. I watched that takeoff this afternoon. So there most certainly has been a very significant increase, and that’s borne out by the statistics, which show — according to the United States — that 21,000 were evacuated over a 24-hour period. That’s both US and coalition evacuees. Americans evacuated about 12,000 of them.

Today, by lunchtime the Americans had evacuated about 9,000. The numbers of people waiting to be evacuated, seem to be sitting between 4 and 5,000 as small numbers of people are now able to get in. But everything is much, much more slickly organized, and there’s no great surprise — people should get better at what they do. And nobody’s had any practice in this kind of an operation, so that it was chaotic to begin with and now is pretty slick is no great surprise.

It doesn’t solve many of the problems outside of the gate, but it does mean that you don’t get the massive bottlenecks that we saw at the beginning.

Read the full conversation here.

Two National Guard units are assisting in the arrival of Afghan evacuees at military bases in the US, a Pentagon spokesman told CNN.

The Wisconsin National Guard has provided its airstrip at Volk Field for the arrival of the Afghan evacuees, who will then be bussed over to Fort McCoy, an Army Reserve base approximately 45 minutes away, Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell said.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky National Guard activated 39 airmen over the weekend from the Contingency Response Group (CRG) from Louisville, Mitchell said. Those airmen flew to Volk Field in Wisconsin to help with the arrival of Afghan evacuees.

Many Afghan allies who the US has aimed to help will be left behind, a senior administration official told CNN, adding that it’s a reality “that would be true whenever we evacuated and whenever the Taliban took over.”  

The official said the 70,000 people evacuated in last 10 days does not closely match the universe of Afghan allies eligible to come to the US, which Biden has previously estimated at 50,000 to 65,000. Many of the 70,000 evacuated have included different groups of Afghan allies given priority by our European partners. In addition, some of those evacuated have not even applied for Special Immigrant Visa status yet, though they will in Qatar or Kuwait.

The official declined to estimate the number of Americans still in Afghanistan, deferring to Secretary of State Antony Blinken who will speak tomorrow, but said the number on Aug. 14 was “probably lower than most people believe” because “a lot left in the final few weeks.”

President Biden said in remarks Tuesday evening that he had asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to give the public “an update and a detailed report on exactly how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, how many we got out and what our projection is.”

Blinken tweeted that he will speak at 12:15 p.m. ET Wednesday “about our efforts to bring Americans home and how we’re supporting the broader evacuation from Afghanistan.”

White House officials have repeatedly said they do not know exactly how many Americans are in Afghanistan.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the US doesn’t know the exact figure because some Americans entered the country without registering with the US Embassy in Kabul and others left the country without deregistering.

Despite that, Sullivan said it is the responsibility of the American government to find those Americans, something he insisted the US is doing.

According to a source familiar with an administration “SitRep” report from Tuesday morning, the State Department has contacted all Americans who were registered in Afghanistan and instructed them to report to designated locations for evacuation.

See Blinken’s tweet:

CNN’s Jason Hoffman, Nicole Gaouette and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting to this post.

President Biden said the US and other G7 nations discussed their “mutual obligation” to support refugees and evacuees that are currently fleeing Afghanistan. 

Biden pledged that the US would be “a leader in these efforts” and will look to international partners “to do the same.”

The President noted that the US is “conducting thorough security screenings in the intermediate stops they are making for anyone who is not a US citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States.”

“Anyone arriving in the United States will have undergone a background check,” the President added.

Biden called on the international community to “work together to resettle thousands of Afghans who ultimately qualify for refugee status.”

“The United States will do our part, and we are already working closely with refugee organizations to rebuild the system that was purposefully destroyed by my predecessor,” Biden added.

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President Biden said that the US is on track to complete its evacuation mission by Aug. 31 and he does not plan to have American troops in the country past that date — but he recognized that it’s up to the Taliban whether that mission will be done on time.

“We are currently on a pace to finish by August 31. I am determined to complete our mission,” Biden said in a much-delayed speech from the White House.

But, he added, “The completion by August 31 depends on the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport to those who are transporting out and no disruptions to our operation.”

“The sooner we finish the better,” Biden said.

Biden also said he’s asked for contingency plans to adjust the Aug. 31 timetable of leaving Afghanistan, “should that become necessary.” However, he stressed that each day American troops are in the country brings “added risk.”

“The longer we say, starting with the acute and growing risk of an attack by a terrorist group known as ISIS-K, an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, which is the sworn enemy of the Taliban as well. Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said.

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President Biden gave an update on the number of people evacuated from Afghanistan, saying that the United States has assisted in the evacuation of 70,700 people since Aug. 14 and 75,900 people since the end of July.

“Another 19 US military flights, 18 C-17s and one C-130 carrying approximately 6,400 evacuees, and 31 coalition flights carrying 5,600 people have have left Kabul just in the last 12 hours — a total of 50 more flights, 12,000 more people since I’ve updated you this morning,” Biden said.

The President also said he had a “productive discussion” with his G7 counterparts, as well as leaders of the United Nations,  North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union this morning.

“There was strong agreement among the leaders, both about the evacuation mission underway as well as the need to coordinate our approach to Afghanistan as we move forward,” he said.

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President Biden is speaking from the White House about the situation in Afghanistan following CNN’s reporting that he’s decided to stick with the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing troops from the country.

Two defense officials told CNN that the first US troops have started leaving Afghanistan as the evacuation effort enters its final week. At this point, only a “few hundred” troops have left out of the total 5,800 at Kabul international airport, and the evacuation mission remains the focus of the efforts on the ground.

In his remarks today, according to the White House, Biden will talk about the US’ “ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to evacuate American citizens, SIV applicants and their families, and other vulnerable Afghans.”

His speech follows a meeting with fellow G7 leaders on evacuation efforts how nations can come together in support of the Afghan people.

The Taliban, meanwhile, said Tuesday that they would not allow Afghans to leave the country and warned that the US must stick to next week’s deadline to pull out. 

Afghanistan evacuation efforts have continued to pick up steam in the past days, now far exceeding the administration’s initial daily goals.

The White House said on Tuesday that 12,700 people were evacuated by 37 US military flights and 8,900 were evacuated by coalition flights over the past 24 hours. The Pentagon added that the military has increased the pace of flights out of Kabul to one aircraft every 45 minutes.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Oren Liebermann contributed reporting to this post. 

The State Department has contacted all Americans who were registered in Afghanistan and instructed them to report to designated locations for evacuation, according to a source familiar with an administration “SitRep” report from Tuesday morning.

The source said the “SitRep” acknowledges US citizens “have experienced delays at checkpoints” but that they have “eventually” reached the airport in Kabul, and noted that US citizen evacuations are ongoing.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the US government has contacted Americans in Afghanistan by email, phone and text messages to give them specific instructions.

As of 8 a.m. ET, there were approximately 2,000 evacuees inside the wire airport, and less than three dozen consular officers on the ground at Kabul’s international airport.

The State Department sent a push message to all Americans in Afghanistan on Tuesday saying if they do not choose to leave Afghanistan, they should be “prepared to arrange their own departure,” according to the message reviewed by CNN.

But about half an hour later they sent a message saying they would like to recall the message.

It is not immediately clear on why the State Department recalled the message. CNN has asked the State Department for comment.

The US is still working on a way to get Americans who are still in the country to the airport, this process is not complete, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Qatar helped facilitate a meeting between CIA Director William J. Burns and a top Taliban leader in Kabul on Monday, according to a source familiar. 

This meeting demonstrates what a significant role the Qataris are now playing in the future of Afghanistan, the source said.

CNN has reached out to the government of Qatar for comment.

The fact that Burns visited with Abdul Ghani Baradar builds a rapport that could be built upon should the US intelligence community develop ties with the Taliban for potential future counter-terrorism cooperation.

CNN reported earlier that the meeting occurred at President Biden’s direction, which reflects the view inside the administration that Burns is the most seasoned and one of the most trusted veteran diplomats on Biden’s team.

The first US troops have started leaving Afghanistan as the evacuation effort enters its final week, two defense officials told CNN.

At this point, only a “few hundred” troops have left of the total 5,800 at Kabul’s international airport, and the evacuation mission remains the focus of the efforts on the ground.

“So far, the reduction does not affect the mission,” one of the officials said, adding that the commander on the ground can decide what military personnel units have become redundant. That decision can be based on a few factors, including the number of gates open at the airport, the number of people coming through, and more.

The Pentagon has been acutely aware of the threat posed by ISIS-K and other terror groups around the airport, and have developed alternate routes to the field for US citizens and Afghan evacuees. In addition, in the Taliban has stated openly that it does not want a US military presence in Afghanistan after Aug. 31, warning that there will be “consequences” were the US to stay longer.

In remarks to an emergency meeting with G7 leaders on Tuesday, President Biden said the threat to US troops in Kabul was one of the key reasons he was sticking to the end of the month as the final withdrawal date. 

“There has been no change to the timeline of the mission which is to have this completed by the end of the month,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday morning.

“If the worst case scenario were to happen, you don’t want more people there than you need,” the defense official said.

As the US nears the final date of withdrawal, the number of Afghan evacuees flown out is expected to gradually decrease, while the number of US troops flown out is expected to increase.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has called for a “transparent and prompt investigation” into reports of human rights abuses by all parties in Afghanistan, expressing “grave concern” on Tuesday over such violations. 

“The Council expressed grave concern at all violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law in Afghanistan and called for full respect for the human rights of all individuals, including women, children and persons belonging to ethnic, religious and other minority groups,” the statement added. 

In its statement, the council urged all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international law, to cease violence, and to respect the right to liberty of movement and freedom to leave the country.

The statement comes as thousands – according to the US Pentagon – continue to wait at Kabul’s international airport to be evacuated from the country.

“The Council urged the international community, including donors and international humanitarian actors, to provide adequate urgent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and major refugee-hosting countries,” the statement added. 

Speaking on Tuesday, High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stressed that the “onus is now fully on the Taliban” to uphold its commitment to respect human rights and liberties, and to “translate these commitments into reality.”

“I strongly urge the Taliban to adopt norms of responsive governance and human rights, and to work to re-establish social cohesion and reconciliation,” she added. 

Bachelet also called on members of the international community to create safe pathways for Afghan refugees and migrants, “broaden asylum and resettlement programs,” and “immediately halt the deportation of Afghans seeking protection.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote in a White House readout that President Biden conveyed to G7 leaders today that the US is “currently on pace” to finish evacuations by Aug. 31. 

CNN reported earlier Tuesday that Biden will stick, for now, with an Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan.

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force aircrew, assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, prepare to load qualified evacuees aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan on August 21.

The US has evacuated approximately more than 4,000 American passport holders plus their families, according to a senior State Department official, and they expect that number to continue to grow in the coming days.

The official said they “are continuing to contact the Americans who have previously registered with Kabul Embassy to determine whether or not they are still in Afghanistan, and to help them evacuate if they want to leave.”

CNN has asked for an estimate of how many Americans remain in Afghanistan.

Italy Prime Minister Mario Draghi arrives to the Colosseum on the first day of the G20 Culture Ministers meeting on July 29, in Rome.

The Italian government will divert resources originally allocated to support the Afghan military in favor of humanitarian aid projects, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Tuesday in a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office.

“Italy will redirect the resources that were destined for Afghan military forces towards humanitarian aid. I ask you all to join this commitment, compatibly with the situation of your countries,” Draghi said. 

Speaking after a virtual meeting of G7 leaders, the Italian prime minister thanked those “helping to ensure the successful outcome of the evacuation operations” in Kabul, including the US, UK and German armed forces.

Draghi noted that while leaders aim to have safely concluded operations in Kabul by the end of August, channels of access must be maintained at Kabul’s international airport beyond this date to guarantee safe passage through Afghanistan.

“We must ensure – right from the start – that international organizations have access to Afghanistan even after this deadline,” he added. 

According to the Italian Ministry of Defense, 488 people have so far been evacuated from Afghanistan by the Italian military on Tuesday.

As evacuation efforts continue, Draghi stressed that leaders must take a unified approach to immigration concerns at both the European and international level.

He also called for cooperation between leaders in the fight against terrorism, stressing that it is “essential to use all the diplomatic and financial levers” available. 

“To achieve all these objectives, I believe that the G7 must also show itself united in opening relations with other countries,” he said.

The length of France’s military evacuation operation depends entirely on when the United States decides to pull its soldiers out of Kabul’s airport, according to an Elysee spokesperson Tuesday. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that additional time beyond the Aug. 31 deadline is necessary for evacuations. Le Drian spoke during a visit to a French military base in Abu Dhabi, a transit point for the country’s evacuation operations. 

At the G7 meeting, France presented three main points of concern: the evacuation and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the future political process in the country and the security risks presented by the Taliban takeover. 

The French presidency said all G7 members agreed that the Taliban must break all ties with terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. France will work with the international community, including regional powers like China and Russia, to address these issues.

The priority for France right now is to help those who are ready and waiting outside the gates of Kabul’s airport to get into the airport and out of the country before the deadline. France has publicly demanded that Afghan authorities maintain, after the deadline, a way out of the country for those who want to leave, the spokesman said.

As of Tuesday, France has evacuated more than 1,500 Afghans and nearly 100 French nationals from Kabul to Paris, via Abu Dhabi, since operations began on Aug. 16, according to the French Foreign Ministry. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will pull its footprint from Afghanistan when the US withdraws, according to a diplomat familiar with the matter.

The future of the Kabul airport remains tenuous and uncertain, the diplomat said. There are ongoing talks, but the diplomat said if someone does not step in soon, the airport could close. This person has heard that the Qataris may play a role in running the airport.

This diplomat said people on the ground in Kabul are not pleased by President Biden’s decision to stick to the deadline, saying there is “an evident disconnect between the reality and the politics.”

They estimate that tens of thousands of people would be left behind because of the Aug. 31 deadline.

CNN has reached out to NATO for comment.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the media about the situation in Afghanistan following a virtual meeting of G7 nation leaders on August 24, in Berlin

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday said evacuation efforts in Afghanistan will not be able to continue without the support of the United States government.

Addressing reporters in Berlin following a virtual meeting of G7 leaders, she said G7 leaders must continue to work together on evacuation operations. 

“I have to emphasize that the US has the lead here. Without the US, we can’t continue with the evacuations, this must be made clear,” Merkel said. 

The German chancellor also called on G7 leaders to take a unified approach to any future relations with the Taliban. 

“A group is being put together from within the G7 which will effort putting together a plan of action as to how we deal with the Taliban in future,” Merkel said, adding that leaders must talk to the Taliban as evacuation efforts continue. 

“It is clear that we want to evacuate as long as possible, but we can only evacuate as long as the security situation allows this, but the security situation is very difficult at present,” Merkel said. 

President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room on the continuing situation in Afghanistan and the developments of Hurricane Henri at the White House on August 22 in Washington. 

President Joe Biden, in brief remarks at an emergency virtual meeting with leaders of the closest US allies, made security risks to US personnel on the ground a focal point of his explanation for sticking to his self-imposed Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, according to a senior administration official with knowledge of the remarks. 

Biden made clear the decision to stick to the withdrawal timeline was in large part driven by those security risks, noting that each day the risks get higher in a country now controlled by the Taliban. Biden made a particular point of warning of the potential for terror attacks, which has become an acute concern inside his administration, the officials said. 

Biden left open the possibility of extending it should the dynamic with the Taliban change. While advocating for maintaining the end of the month deadline, he said the risk of an attack is “very high,” according to an administration official. 

Biden went into the meeting facing pressure from G7 allies — and bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill — to extend the deadline, as concerns have grown that the scale of the operation leaves little chance to fully evacuate vulnerable Afghans by the end of the month.

Biden emphasized the current accelerated pace of evacuations to the assembled leaders and said his goal is still to see them completed by the end of the month, a Western official familiar with the conversation said. 

Still, Biden did point out that he had directed his team to draft contingency plans should the White House determine the evacuation needs to be extended. Any shift in Biden’s decision would be driven pace the of the evacuation in the days ahead, though it was made clear the safety of US personnel is considered paramount at this point. 

Lawmakers from both parties pressed top Biden national security officials at a classified briefing Tuesday to extend the Aug. 31 deadline for the US military to evacuate Americans and vulnerable Afghans from Afghanistan.

House members were briefed by President Biden’s top national security officials Tuesday – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines – at the same time that Biden decided to stick with the Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan.

The pushback from lawmakers at the briefing and afterward underscores the challenges Biden’s team faces on the ground in Afghanistan and back home in Washington as it scrambles to evacuate American citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program applicants and other vulnerable Afghans ahead of the deadline.

Lawmakers said that Biden’s team recognized the challenge of getting everyone out by Aug. 31, saying there was an acknowledgement of contingency plans to go beyond the end of the months.

The pushback from lawmakers on the deadline began on Monday, when House Intelligence Chairman Adam Smith told reporters following a briefing from the intelligence community that he didn’t see how it was possible to complete the evacuation by the deadline.

Then on Tuesday, lawmakers made their case directly to the national security officials in charge of the US withdrawal.

“We made it very clear to them they should let the president know, back off that number,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “Blinken kept trying to say we’re going to do our best, but they all acknowledged it can’t be done. You couldn’t get all the Americans out of there, much less the Afghans. 

Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, argued that the conditions on the ground have changed and the deadline should change with it.

“This was the date that United States set, and we set that date under different conditions, during a different time,” Crow said. “Those conditions have changed, we’re in a different world now than we were in when that date was originally set. We have to respond to that different world and that different reality. We have to get the mission done.”