On Tuesday, the Biden administration admitted it did not know how many Americans were still in Afghanistan as the Taliban has seized control of the country.
In a CNN interview, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said that there are “certainly thousands of Americans … we don’t have an exact count.”
“Best guess … between five and ten thousand that are near Kabul,” Kirby continued. “There was a message put out by the State Department today advising those Americans about how to queue up and how to get to the airport so that now that security’s better, they don’t need to necessarily shelter in place. They can begin movement to the airport for processing.”
https://twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1427619033373986816?s=20
The State Department said that it evacuated 1,600 people from Afghanistan over the weekend and just 700 people were evacuated on Monday, far below the potentially 10,000 Americans still remaining in the country.
According to the New York Times, on Monday evening Afghans “heard gunfire erupting from the airport as Taliban fighters entered the outer compound of the airport, and opened fire to disperse the crowds.”
An Afghan man interview by the Times “said he was about to be processed for departure around 8 p.m., after a wait of more than 36 hours, when the Taliban arrived and began beating people to break up the crowd.”
“‘They beat us with their rifle butts and I am slightly injured,’ he said. His wife and son also caught blows, he said. ‘It was a very dangerous situation but we managed to escape. Thank God that we managed to get out of the airport. I am going back home,’” the Times reported.
According to CNN, the “Taliban controls access roads to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, meaning that anyone wishing to gain entry to the airport’s main gates will have to pass their checks. Taliban forces are continuing to try to control crowds trying to enter. The US still controls the military side of the airport, which was fenced off yesterday afternoon with a layer of razor wire, guarded by US military personnel after scenes of pandemonium ensued.”
CNN added, “US forces at Kabul airport killed 2 armed men on Monday after they fired on US troops, one witness told CNN. The witness also said a third fighter was injured in the confrontation.”
