The Airlift From Afghanistan Is Continuing, Amid Threats and Widespread Criticism

The US is evacuating Americans and some Afghans but thousands still wait to escape.

U.S. Marines face Afghans hoping to join evacuees at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.Lance Cpl. Nicholas Guevara/U.S. Marine Corps via AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Amid threats, delays, chaotic scenes, and a cascade of criticism, the US military is evacuating thousands of people from Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s August 15 takeover of Kabul. 

About 18,000 people have now been evacuated from Kabul since July, President Joe Biden said Friday, in what he described as “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” CNN reported Saturday that there are still about 14,000 outside the airport, crowded outside the airports concrete, razor-wire topped barriers. Many are Afghan civilians who may be unable to obtain visas allowing them to escape.

An uncertain number of US citizens, estimated to be as high as 15,000, are in the country, many far from the airport without any safe way to get there. The US military is gathering some Americans and “possibly other civilians” outside the airport, the Associated Press reported Saturday. Three US CH-47 Chinook helicopters, for example, airlifted 169 Americans gathered at a Kabul hotel to the airport Thursday. The AP quoted a senior US official who said that US forces are devising new ways to get evacuees to the airport amid “potential Islamic threats against Americans.”

Biden and his administration have faced widespread attacks for Kabul’s rapid fall and the apparent lack of preparation by US forces to evacuate American citizens and Afghans who assisted US forces. But despite some deaths and reported instances of Taliban reprisal efforts, the evacuation, so far, is proceeding without the amount of violence many feared. That is due in part to the US coordinating with the Taliban, which claims to be allowing their safe exit.

The complexity of the evacuation effort was highlighted by an hours-long delay in Air Force flights Friday resulting from overcrowding at a staging base in Qatar. The State Department said Friday that Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan have agreed to temporarily host Americans, and in some cases other citizens, who are fleeing Afghanistan.

The US military has said it aims to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 people per day, but has not met that goal so far. The military hopes to pull out the thousands of troops at the Kabul airport by August 31.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate