The United States on Saturday urged its citizens in Afghanistan to avoid traveling to the Kabul airport, citing “potential security threats” near its gates.
The warning from the US embassy in Kabul provided no detail on the danger, but a White House official later confirmed that aides had briefed President Joe Biden on “counterterrorism operations” in Afghanistan, including against the Islamic State group.
Conditions outside Hamid Karzai International Airport have been chaotic amid the crush of people hoping to flee the Taliban takeover of the country a week ago.
As thousands of Americans and Afghans wait at the airport for flights or gather nervously outside its gates, there have been “sporadic” reports, confirmed by the Pentagon, of Taliban fighters or other militants beating and harassing people trying to flee.
“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising US citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so,” the US embassy alert said.
In a telephone briefing Sunday, senior government officials from Canada described conditions around the airport as “tenuous, chaotic and desperate.”
They said Canadian troops had evacuated nearly 1,000 Afghans from the country, adding: “This is a dangerous mission.”
– 17,000 evacuated –
Underlining the threat that the White House sees in the unfolding chaos — and likely also due to concern over a hurricane approaching the US northeast — Biden canceled a planned trip home to Delaware Saturday.
“This morning, the president met with his national security team… They discussed the security situation in Afghanistan and counter-terrorism operations, including ISIS-K,” a White House official said.
Known as Islamic State in the Khorasan (IS-K or ISIS-K), the Afghan IS branch has been on the back foot since suffering heavy losses in 2019 but it retains the ability to carry out devastating attacks in urban areas, including Kabul.
“There has been no reported change to the current enemy situation in and around the airport at this time,” US Major General Hank Taylor said, however.
But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby conveyed a sense of urgency as the military, under heavy pressure, pursues the goal of completing the evacuation by August 31.
“We’ve been very honest about the fact that we know that we’re fighting against both time and space,” he said, adding, “That’s the race we’re in right now.”
Some 10,000-15,000 Americans need to be evacuated from Afghanistan, according to Biden, who says the administration wants to get a further 50,000-60,000 Afghan allies and their family members out of the country.
Taylor said 17,000 people had been taken out since the operation began on August 14, with many flown first to Qatar or Kuwait. The total included 2,500 Americans.
In the past 24 hours, Taylor said, six military C-17 planes and 32 charter flights had departed the Kabul airport, carrying 3,800 people — a sharp decline from the previous day.
On Friday, the US military sent helicopters to rescue over 150 Americans unable to reach the airport gates, an official said.
That was the first evidence that US forces were willing and able to go beyond the US-secured compound to help people seeking evacuation.
Biden has promised to help any American in Afghanistan seeking to evacuate, saying, “Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.”
But he has admitted that the presence of thousands of US soldiers at the airport does not guarantee safe passage to that vast compound.
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© Agence France-Presse