The United States has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300
U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe
Biden's Tuesday deadline, senior administration officials said, as rocket fire
in Kabul and another U.S. drone strike against suspected Islamic State
militants underscored the grave threat in the war's final days.
“This is
the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission these
last couple of days,” said America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony
Blinken, not long before confirmation of the drone strike in Kabul.
The steady
stream of U.S. military jets taking off and landing at Hamid Karzai
International Airport in Afghanistan's capital continued Monday even after
rocket fire targeted the airport. No one claimed responsibility for the
rockets, which hit a nearby neighborhood. U.S. Central Command spokesman Bill
Urban said five rockets targeted the airport and a U.S. defensive system on the
airfield known as a Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System, or C-RAM, was
employed against them. He said there were no U.S. casualties and the airfield
continued to operate. Further details were not immediately available. The White
House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the rocket attack.
Biden's
national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday that for those U.S.
citizens seeking immediately to leave Afghanistan by the looming deadline, “we
have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think
are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is
remaining.”
The White
House said Monday morning that about 1,200 people were evacuated from Kabul
over the prior 24 hours aboard 26 U.S. military flights and two allied flights.
Sullivan
said the U.S. does not currently plan to have an ongoing embassy presence after
the final U.S. troop withdrawal. But he pledged the U.S. “will make sure there
is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident” after
Tuesday, as well as for “those Afghans who helped us.” But untold numbers of
vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban
rule, are likely to be left behind.
Blinken
said the U.S. was working with other countries in the region to either keep the
Kabul airport open after Tuesday or to reopen it “in a timely fashion.”
He also
said that while the airport is critical, “there are other ways to leave
Afghanistan, including by road and many countries border Afghanistan.” The
U.S., he said, is “making sure that we have in place all of the necessary tools
and means to facilitate the travel for those who seek to leave
Afghanistan" after Tuesday.
There also
are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but who have told the
State Department they plan to remain in the country or are still undecided.
According to the latest totals, about 114,000 people have been evacuated since
Aug. 14, including approximately 2,900 on military and coalition flights during
the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m. Sunday.
Members of
Congress criticized the chaotic and violent evacuation.
“We didn’t
have to be in this rush-rush circumstance with terrorists breathing down our
neck,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. "But it’s really the responsibility
of the prior administration and this administration that has caused this crisis
to be upon us and has led to what is without question a humanitarian and
foreign policy tragedy.”
Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the U.S. policy in
Afghanistan, with 2,500 troops on the ground, had been working. “We were, in
effect, keeping the lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting, and having
a light footprint in the country,” he said.
U.S.
officials said Sunday's American drone strike hit a vehicle carrying multiple
Islamic State suicide bombers, causing secondary explosions indicating the
presence of a substantial amount of explosive material. A senior U.S. official
said the military drone fired a Hellfire missile at a vehicle in a compound
between two buildings after individuals were seen loading explosives into the
trunk.
The
official said there was an initial explosion caused by the missile, followed by
a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of
explosives inside the vehicle. The U.S. believes that two Islamic State group
individuals who were targeted were killed.
In a
statement, U.S. Central Command said it is looking into the reports of civilian
casualties that may have been caused by the secondary explosions. An Afghan
official said three children were killed in the strike. The officials spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
It was the
second airstrike in recent days the U.S. has conducted against the militant
group, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing Thursday at the
Kabul airport gate that killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans
struggling to get out of the country and escape the new Taliban rule. The
Pentagon said a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of
IS' Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday local time in retaliation for the
airport bombing.
In
Delaware, Biden met privately with the families of the American troops killed
in the suicide attack, and solemnly watched as the remains of the fallen
returned to U.S. soil from Afghanistan. First lady Jill Biden and many of the
top U.S. defense and military leaders joined him on the tarmac at Dover Air
Force Base to grieve with loved ones as the “dignified transfer” of remains
unfolded, a military ritual for those killed in foreign combat.
The 13 service
members were the first U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan since February 2020,
the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban in
which the militant group halted attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S.
agreement to remove all troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden announced in
April that the 2,500 to 3,000 troops who remained would be out by September,
ending what he has called America’s forever war.
The White
House has rescheduled Biden's meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr
Zelenskyy, from Monday to Wednesday as the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan enters
its tense final hours.
Sullivan
appeared on CBS' “Face the Nation,” CNN's “State of the Union” and “Fox News
Sunday.” Blinken was interviewed on ABC's “This Week” and NBC's “Meet the
Press.” McConnell was on Fox and Romney was on CNN.
AP wire services helped contribute to this report.