The U.S. warned that Islamic State poses a threat to Americans in Afghanistan as the Biden administration seeks to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.
“The threat is real. It is acute. It is persistent. And it is something we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal," Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, told CNN on Sunday when asked whether crowds at the Kabul international airport are vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Mr. Sullivan said the U.S. military and intelligence community are working to stop potential attacks and to defend the airport. “We will do everything that we can for as long as we’re on the ground to keep that from happening. We are taking it absolutely deadly seriously," he said.
The U.S. has sufficient resources on the ground to defend the airport, Mr. Sullivan added. Asked whether Mr. Biden would consider sending in more troops, Mr. Sullivan told NBC, “Every single day, the president asks his military commanders…whether they need additional resources, additional troops. So far, the answer has been no. But he will ask again today."
The U.S. is continuing its massive evacuation effort in the country amid ongoing chaos outside the airport. The U.S. evacuated nearly 8,000 people from the country on about 60 flights over the 24-hour period through early Sunday morning, according to U.S. officials. More than 25,000 people have been evacuated since the airlift began on Aug. 14, the officials said.
Roughly two dozen countries have agreed to take in Afghan evacuees while they are processed. The Biden administration has also ordered commercial airlines to help evacuate Afghans from Europe and the Middle East after they are moved from Afghanistan.
Mr. Sullivan was one of several U.S. national security officials to appear on Sunday morning news programs to discuss the evacuation effort. Mr. Biden is scheduled to provide an update on the situation in Afghanistan at 4 p.m. Monday during a speech at the White House. The White House also announced that the leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations will hold a virtual meeting on Afghanistan on Tuesday.
U.S. officials said they were committed to evacuating every American who wants to leave the country. The Biden administration hasn’t publicly provided a precise number of Americans who remain in Afghanistan, estimating that figure to be several thousand.
Mr. Sullivan said the U.S. is committed to evacuating Afghan interpreters and others who assisted Americans over the last two decades in the country. “We are not going to rest until we have followed through on getting visas to all of those people and getting them on planes and getting them out of the country," he said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to say whether the U.S. would be able to evacuate all of the Afghan interpreters. “We can’t place a specific figure on exactly what we’ll be able to do, but I’ll just tell you that we’re going to try to exceed expectations, and do as much as we can, and take care of as many people as we can, for as long as we can," he told ABC.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is making progress in moving those inside the airport onto flights.
“The more we move people out of the airport who are already in, the more we alleviate what has been overcrowding inside the airport, the more we can get people inside the airport and we reduce some of the crowding at the gate," he said on Fox News Sunday.
Mr. Blinken declined to answer questions about whether the U.S. intelligence community had failed in the run-up to the withdrawal. “There’s going to be plenty of time to figure out what happened," he said. U.S. officials have said they were surprised that Afghanistan fell to the Taliban so quickly. An internal State Department memo last month warned top agency officials of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces.
The secretary of state said there are al Qaeda members in Afghanistan, but argued their capacity to attack the U.S. has been diminished.
United Nations officials have reported that al Qaeda operations are still present in some areas, and U.S. intelligence assessments have said that the group could reconstitute itself in Afghanistan within 18 months to two years after an American withdrawal. U.S. officials have since said they are likely to reassess that timeline.
Two polls released Sunday found that Mr. Biden’s approval rating had dipped amid the chaotic withdrawal. An NBC News poll found that 49% of adults approved of Mr. Biden’s job performance, with 48% disapproving. Rising concerns about Covid-19 and the economy have also taken a toll on the approval rating, which had stood at 53% in April, the poll found.
A CBS News/YouGov survey found that 50% of adults approved of the president’s performance, down from 58% in July and 62% in March.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) said the U.S. should send convoys into Kabul to bring Americans and Afghan partners of the U.S. to the airport for evacuation.
“The Taliban needs to understand quite clearly that we have the right to get our American citizens out of Afghanistan. And if that means we need to escort them to our airport to get them out, then we will do so,’’ said Ms. Ernst, an Iraq war veteran, in an interview on ABC.
Mr. Austin, in his interview with ABC, confirmed that the U.S. had conducted limited operations in Kabul to get Americans to the airport.
Ms. Ernst also said that Mr. Biden, before withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, should have arranged for stronger coordination with other countries to vet Afghan partners of the U.S. and move them to safety. “This is where President Biden, unfortunately, has really, he’s messed it up," she said, describing the U.S. withdrawal as “haphazard" and “one of the biggest debacles we have seen in the last several decades."
“If we had been working with those allies, those partner countries, this would have been a lot easier. He knew this day was coming, and yet again he was very slow to respond," she said of the president.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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