Biden holding firm on Aug. 31 deadline
Critics say US caving to Taliban demands to leave Afghanistan
President Joe Biden declared Tuesday that he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline for completing a risky airlift of Americans, endangered Afghans and others seeking to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The decision defies allied leaders who want to give the evacuation more time and opens Biden to criticism that he caved to Taliban deadline demands.
“Every day we’re on the ground is another day that we know ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both us and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said at the White House, referring to the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, which is known for staging suicide attacks on civilians.
He said the Taliban are cooperating and security is holding despite a number of violent incidents.
“But it’s a tenuous situation,” he said, adding, “We run a serious risk of it breaking down as time goes on.”
The United States in recent days has ramped up its airlift amid new reports of rights abuses that fuel concern about the fate of thousands of people who fear retribution from the Taliban and are trying to flee the country.
Biden said he had asked the Pentagon and State Department for evacuation contingency plans that would adjust the timeline for full withdrawal should that become necessary.
Pentagon officials expressed confidence the airlift can get all Americans out by next Tuesday, the deadline Biden had set long before the Taliban completed their takeover.
But unknown thousands of other foreign nationals remain in Afghanistan and are struggling to get out.
The Taliban, who have wrested control of the country back nearly 20 years after being
ousted in a U.s.-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks, insist the airlift must end Aug. 31. Any decision by Biden to stay longer could reignite a war between the militants and the approximately 5,800 American troops who are executing the airlift at Kabul airport.
In Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference the U.S. must stick to its self-imposed deadline, saying “after that we won’t let Afghans be taken out” on evacuation flights.
He also said the Taliban would bar Afghans from accessing roads to the airport, while allowing foreigners to pass in order to prevent large crowds from massing.
In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden, whose handling of the hastily arranged evacuation has been roundly criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike, announced during a meeting of fellow leaders of the G-7 industrialized nations that he planned to stick to the Aug. 31 deadline. British, French and other officials argued for extending the deadline, officials said.
At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said Aug. 31 leaves enough time to get all Americans out, but he was less specific about completing the evacuation of all at-risk Afghans. He said about 4,000 American passport holders and their family members had been evacuated from Kabul as of Tuesday.
“We expect that number to grow in coming days,” Kirby said. He also said the military would have to start moving troops and their equipment out of Kabul several days
prior to Aug. 31 in order to be out entirely by then.
It’s unclear how many Americans who want to leave are still in the country, but their status is a hot political topic for Biden.
Some Republicans bristled Tuesday at the U.S. seeming to comply with a Taliban edict.
“We need to have the top priority to tell the Taliban that we’re going to get all of our people out, regardless of
what timeline was initially set,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
Biden decided in April that he was ending the U.S. war, which began in October 2001. Former President Donald Trump had earlier agreed in negotiations with the Taliban to end the war in May.
However, Biden waited until the Taliban had swept to power this month, following the collapse of the U.s.backed
government and its army, to begin executing an airlift.
Tragic scenes at the airport have transfixed the world.
Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, and another seven died Sunday in a panicked stampede. An
Afghan solider was killed Monday in a gunfight.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Group of Seven nations will not recognize a Taliban government unless it guarantees people can leave the country if they wish, both before and after the August deadline.
A day earlier, the director of the CIA, William Burns, met with a top Taliban leader in Kabul. The extraordinary meeting reflected the gravity of the crisis and America’s need to coordinate with a Taliban group it has accused of gross human rights abuses.
For now, the U.S. military coordinates all air traffic in and out of the Kabul airport.
It’s unclear when commercial flights might resume, putting pressure on the current evacuation efforts to get as many people out as possible.