Americans exit Afghanistan by land
Total to fly out of Kabul during airlift said to be 120,000
Four U.S. citizens safely escaped Afghanistan by land on Monday, the State Department said, as the American evacuation tilts away from the Kabul air exit that ended last week.
The group’s escape marked the first time the U.S has confirmed it facilitated a successful overland exit from Afghanistan since the airlifts concluded.
“U.S. Embassy personnel were present to greet them as they crossed out of Afg hanistan,” the State Department said in a statement. The State Department did not specify what country the group entered.
The U.S. said it evacuated more than 120,000 people in an unprecedented August airlift operation that was conducted as America ended its longest war.
But President Biden said last Tuesday that after two weeks of perilous plane evacuations, between 100 and 200 Americans “with some intention to leave” remained in the war-torn country now controlled by the Taliban.
The evacuation Monday comes after reports over the weekend that at least four planes for evacuees at a northern airport in Mazar-eSharif were being held on the ground.
An official speaking on condition of anonymity said, the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave. Those passengers had left the airport while the situation was being sorted out, the official said.
But the top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, said that the group included Americans and that they had boarded planes but the Taliban were not letting them take off, effectively “holding them hostage.”
McCaul told “Fox News Sunday” that American citizens and Afghan interpreters were unable to leave on the planes.
“The Taliban will not let them leave the airport,” he said, adding that he’s worried “they’re going to demand more and more, whether it be cash or legitimacy as the government of Afghanistan.” McCaul did not offer more details or say where that information came from.