President Joe Biden is sticking with his planned Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, but keeping open the option of staying longer if the Taliban don’t cooperate on evacuations, according to an official familiar with the plan.
The U.S. is seeking to remove Americans from the country as well as Afghan interpreters and others who cooperated with the U.S. military during the two-decade war.
Biden relayed his thinking to leaders of the Group of Seven nations at a virtual meeting Tuesday morning on the military drawdown in Afghanistan and efforts to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. The G7 leaders were expected to press Biden to extend the withdrawal deadline past August.
The president is set to address the issue in public remarks later Tuesday. The official said the Pentagon recommended Biden stick with the Aug. 31 withdrawal given security risks facing the military from a potential terrorist attack from ISIS-K and other militant groups as a result of the anticipated deterioration of Taliban cooperation.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his group would accept “no extensions” to the deadline and told Afghans not to try to flee the country.
The situation in Afghanistan has delivered a blow to Biden’s approval rating. It stands now at 41%, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll out Tuesday.
Pentagon: Getting military out of Afghanistan will take time
Withdrawing the nearly 6,000 U.S. troops from Hamid Karzai International Airport will take time and likely curtail or halt civilian evacuation flights before Aug. 31. It took several days to fly in the troops and their equipment, and it will take some time to get them out safely.
The withdrawal must be done in a sequenced and precise way, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday. Security will be “paramount.”
Read more:Exclusive: Americans’ harsh judgment on Afghanistan costs Biden’s approval, down to 41%
Taliban say Afghans should not try to flee the country
The Taliban will stop Afghans from trying to go to the Kabul airport as evacuations continue ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. to withdraw from the country.
Taliban spokesman Zabidullah Mujahid said during a Tuesday press conference that Afghans should not go to the airport or otherwise attempt to leave the country.
“The way to the airport has been closed now. Afghans are not allowed to go there now. Foreigners are allowed to go,” he said, via the translator on BBC. “But we have stopped Afghan nationals (from going) because the crowd is more. There is danger that people will lose their lives. There might be stampede.
“We are again reassuring you to come to your homes, come back to your jobs, come back to your normal life. There is no danger for you. We are reassuring you,” he said.
Separately, he said women should stay home to remain safe, for a time. Women would not be permanently prevented from going to work, he said.
Mujahid discouraged the U.S. from instructing Afghans to leave Afghanistan.
“We are asking Americans to change your policy and please don’t encourage Afghans to leave. Don’t encourage our engineers, our doctors, our military. We need them. We need that talent. Do not take them out to foreign countries,” Mujahid said, according to the BBC’s translation.
Previously, the Taliban had pledged to uphold the rights of women despite their history of enforcing strict codes that allowed for violence against them.
The U.S. has evacuated about 58,700 people from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, and the Taliban have said they will not accept an extension of the Aug. 31 deadline.
More:Biden’s approval rating drops to lowest point amid rise in COVID, Afghanistan fallout
Another 21,600 evacuated from Kabul as of early Tuesday
On Tuesday, the White House released its latest evacuation numbers out of Kabul: In the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m., approximately 21,600 people have been evacuated. They flew out on 37 U.S. military flights – including 32 C-17s and five C-130s – carrying around 12,700 people, and 57 coalition flights that flew 8,900 people.
The Biden administration says this brings its evacuation tally to about 58,700 people since Aug. 14.
This comes a week before the Aug. 31 deadline negotiated between the U.S. and Taliban for full U.S. withdrawal. On Monday, the Taliban warned that going beyond that date would provoke a “reaction” because it indicated the U.S. occupation was continuing. On Tuesday, they emphasized that point.
New threat:Brutal ISIS-K affiliate in Afghanistan poses terror threat to U.S. evacuation
Taliban: ‘No extensions’ to Aug. 31 exit deadline
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday his group will accept “no extensions” to the deadline. He says life is returning to normal in the country, but chaos at the airport remains a problem. Many Afghans are desperate to flee the Taliban takeover of the country.
Mujahid says he is “not aware” of any meeting between the Taliban and the CIA, but he did not deny that such a meeting took place. An official says the director of the U.S. agency met with the Taliban’s top political leader in Kabul on Monday.
– Associated Press
More:Amid Taliban takeover, fear Afghanistan’s media landscape will ‘disappear’
Airbnb to provide free housing to 20,000 Afghan refugees globally
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said Tuesday the rental logistics company would offer free housing for up to 20,000 refugees fleeing Afghanistan in host locations around the world.
“The displacement and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the US and elsewhere is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time. We feel a responsibility to step up,” Chesky wrote in a series of tweets announcing the move.
The company will pay for the housing of the Afghan refugees, who will be housed by partnered hosts in cities around the world. Non-governmental organizations and regional partners helping refugees resettle will also be involved in the process.
Chesky did not say how long the refugees will be offered housing or if the company is helping with any long-term resettlement efforts.
The U.S. has ferried almost 64,000 people out of Afghanistan, while other nations like Canada, France and Germany and the United Kingdom have also taken refugees.
Airbnb did not specify in which countries it would house refugees, but it operates in all countries accepting displaced Afghans.
The partnership is not the first time Airbnb has used its housing to help those in need. In March 2020, the company offered up to 100,000 sites for free lodging to medical first responders and relief workers combatting the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden, G7 leaders to meet
President Joe Biden will meet Tuesday morning with leaders of the G7 nations to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Biden is expected speak on that meeting and offer other updates at noon from the White House.
On Monday, press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden has had multiple conversations with world leaders in recent days, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
“We remain in close touch with allies and partners to coordinate the evacuation of their own citizens and their priority personnel, as well as to respond to the ongoing political and security situation in Afghanistan,” Psaki said.
– Katie Wadington
More:For Biden, fallout from the Afghanistan withdrawal abroad complicates agenda at home
Report: CIA Director Burns secretly met with Taliban leader Monday
WASHINGTON — William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, held a secret in-person meeting with the Taliban’s acting leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Kabul on Monday, U.S. officials told the Washington Post.
The meeting was the highest-level meeting between a Biden administration official and the Taliban since the fundamentalist group took full control of the country on Aug. 15. While Burns directs the U.S.’s main spy agency, his longtime background is in diplomacy, making him technically the most veteran diplomat in President Joe Biden’s orbit.
The meeting comes as American and allied forces continue a rapid effort to evacuate thousands of U.S. and allied citizens as well as Afghans who are likely vulnerable to persecution under Taliban rule.
The CIA has not released details of the meeting.
For Burns, the meeting also presented the opportunity to assess Afghanistan’s soon-to-be formal leader. For Baradar, who was imprisoned by the CIA for 11 years, the meeting was another opportunity to display the Taliban’s capability as a governing force and negotiating partner.
After his release from prison in 2018, Baradar led talks with the Trump administration in Qatar that negotiated U.S. troop withdrawal from the country. In those meetings, he met face-to-face with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had previously also led the CIA.
On Monday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and State Department spokesperson Ned Price both confirmed the administration is in talks with the Taliban but did not elaborate on what those meetings entailed.
– Matthew Brown
Learn more:From Bush to Biden: policies that led to the chaos in Afghanistan
UN Human Rights panel: Taliban executing women
GENEVA The U.N. human rights chief warned Tuesday that she had credible reports of “summary executions” and restrictions on women in areas under Taliban control in Afghanistan, fueling fears of what their rule might hold a week before U.S. forces are set to withdraw.
Michelle Bachelet urged the Human Rights Council to take “bold and vigorous action” to monitor the rights situation in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s stunning takeover, as she sought to ensure that international attention on the country doesn’t wane.
Taliban leaders have promised to restore security and tried to project an image of moderation, but many Afghans are skeptical and are racing to the leave the country, leading to chaos at Kabul’s international airport. Amid scattered reports, it has been difficult to determine how widespread abuses might be and whether they reflect that Taliban leaders are saying one thing and doing another, or if fighters on the ground are taking matters into their own hands.
Leaders from the Group of Seven nations plan to meet later Tuesday to discuss the burgeoning refugee crisis and the collapse of the Afghan government amid wrangling over whether the full U.S. withdrawal of troops could be extended beyond the end of the month to allow more time to evacuate those desperate to leave.
– Associated Press
How did we get here?:One week in US withdrawal and Taliban recapture of Afghanistan
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