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Biden faces pressure to extend Afghanistan evacuation mission as Taliban warns against doing so
The United States faced mounting global pressure on Monday to extend its evacuation mission in Afghanistan past President Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, despite a Taliban warning against doing so.
The admonition from Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who cautioned that foreign forces would be subject to “consequences” should they remain in Kabul into September, came as the U.S. military accelerated flights out of the Afghan capital following a week of chaos and insecurity that thwarted attempts by thousands of foreigners and desperate Afghans to depart.
“If they extend it, that means they are extending occupation,” Shaheen told Sky News. “If they are intent on continuing the occupation, it will provoke a reaction.”
The remarks add a new element of risk to Biden’s effort to contain the fallout from the Taliban’s surprise takeover of Afghanistan just eight days ago, a turn that has ignited a public reckoning over the manner in which the president withdrew American forces.
The militants’ resistance to any prolonged foreign presence injected fresh uncertainty into international coordination efforts a day before Biden holds crisis talks with leaders from the Group of Seven industrial bloc. British officials have said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the emergency meeting to propose new sanctions on the Taliban and push Biden to extend the evacuation operation.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters Monday that the United States could finish its evacuation of Americans by the current deadline, which Biden set this spring.
“As I’ve said before, as the president has said before, we believe that we have time between now and the 31st to get out any American who wants to get out,” he said. The administration does not know exactly how many Americans are in the country nor how many want to leave, officials have said.
Sullivan declined to say what Biden will tell Johnson on Tuesday about extending the deadline.
Ben Wallace, Johnson’s defense minister, has said that Britain, like other nations reliant on U.S. air- and manpower in Afghanistan, will be forced to end its own evacuation effort when the United States departs.
“It’s really important for people to understand the United States have over 6,000 people in Kabul airport, and when they withdraw that will take away the framework . . . and we will have to go as well,” Wallace said.
France is also appealing for more time. On Monday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was concerned by the timeline. President Emmanuel Macron, in a call with Biden on Friday, stressed a “collective moral responsibility” to vulnerable Afghans. “We cannot abandon them,” he said, according to the French Embassy.
While Biden has resisted committing to changing his departure deadline, his aides are increasingly preparing for such a step. Officials said Monday that an extension, if authorized, would probably have a narrow focus on evacuating remaining Americans, not the much larger group of Afghans who want to escape.
One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal planning, said any extension would be brief and likely to end before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Hanging over the deliberations is the possibility that the Taliban, newly emboldened as it takes charge of the Afghan state, would respond to a continued foreign footprint by not only suspending its cooperation with the evacuation operation but also targeting foreign troops at the airport.
Sullivan said the administration is in daily communication with Taliban officials but declined to say what their private message had been regarding the possibility of a prolonged U.S. presence, however short.
“We are taking this day by day,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to keep making progress, and the president will ultimately make his decision about the precise shape and scope of the operation.”
It was the first time the military had met — and in fact exceeded — its goal of 5,000 to 9,000 evacuations daily. While most of those airlifted are being processed at military bases in the Persian Gulf countries or in Europe, at least several planeloads of Afghans have already landed in the United States. Diplomats are also making arrangements with countries from Europe to South America to take in Afghan refugees at least temporarily.
Even as flights ramped up, conditions remained trying for Afghans attempting to reach the relative safety of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where U.S. troops are now stationed along with forces from Turkey, Britain, France and other nations.
Source: Washingtonpost.com
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