ISIS STILL OBSTACLE
WH fear for citizen evac
The Biden administration is concerned about “active” threats from the terror group ISIS-K as it seeks to bring home dozens of American citizens left behind in Afghanistan by President Biden’s military withdrawal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged Thursday.
On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters the number of US passport holders stuck in Taliban-controlled territory is “likely closer to 100, perhaps considerably closer to 100” after Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken estimated earlier this week that between 100 and 200 Americans remained in Afghanistan.
Psaki claimed Thursday that the State Department is “in close touch” with those left behind and “working in close coordination with them to determine how they can leave the country [or] if they’ve left the country.”
She then threw cold water on the idea that chartered planes could be used to get the remaining Americans out of the country.
“We do not have personnel on the ground, nor do we have air assets in the country, and we don’t control the airspace. So anyone who’s suggesting we are preventing these flights, that’s not accurate,” she said.
“We couldn’t prevent a charter flight from taking off, but what’s important for people to understand is where we have some concern, and that is the fact that we do not have reliable means to confirm the basic details of charter flights — including who may be organizing them, the number of American citizens and other priority groups on board, the accuracy of the manifest and where the plane may land, what security protocols they’re taking into place.”
Psaki added it was “understandable we have concern about flights where we don’t have that level of information and understanding about the manifest, what the protocols are that are underway.”
“There are active, there continue to be active ISIS-K threats, and there’s also a question of where these flights go, where they land,” she went on. “We know ISIS-K has a keen interest in attacks against aviation targets and our personnel on the ground in our military bases, and these are among the risks that we take into account.”