Washington: The United States will focus on securing the Kabul airport and additional US forces will flow into the airport on Monday and Tuesday, US Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said, as people tried to flee a day after Taliban insurgents seized the Afghan capital.
The United States has temporarily halted all evacuation flights from Kabul to clear people who had converged on the airfield, a US defence official told Reuters, but did not say how long the pause would last.
The defence official said the United States intent was to get tens of thousands of at-risk Afghans who worked for the US government out of Afghanistan and was looking at temporarily housing them at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Bliss in Texas.
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US forces protecting the airport in Kabul have killed two gunmen in separate incidents, a US official told Reuters.The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the incidents had occurred over the past 24 hours.
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An armed contingent of paramilitary force Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is "actively" securing the diplomatic staff of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan's capital Kabul and will be there "till required", officials said on Monday as the Taliban took over the country.
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UK minister says all Afghans unlikely to get out
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace held back tears as he conceded that Britain was unlikely to be able to evacuate all its Afghan allies from Kabul.
Speaking on Monday via webcam on LBC Radio, Wallace said it was a really deep part of regret for me that not all Afghans eligible to come to the UK will be able to do so during the current evacuation drive.
In addition to the 4,000 or so UK nationals in Afghanistan, Britain is processing claims of Afghan citizens, such as interpreters, who have helped in the 20 years since first arrived following the 9/11 attacks. -
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Many Hindus and Sikhs have taken refuge in Kabul's Karte Parwan gurdwara after Afghanistan fell into the hands of the Taliban, DSGMC president Manjinder Singh Sirsa claimed on Monday.
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Military flights taking part in the evacuation from Kabul airport are set to begin again shortly after a short pause, a US official told Reuters.
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AP reports seven people dead at Kabul airport amid evacuation chaos.
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UN chief urges Security Council not to abandon people of Afghanistan.
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Russia has set up working contacts with representatives of the new authorities in Afghanistan to ensure the safety of the Russian embassy, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
The ministry said the situation in Kabul was stabilising and it called on all sides to refrain from violence.
Biden “stands by” US withdrawal
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the failure of the Afghan military is to blame for the Taliban's swift takeover of Afghanistan.
Sullivan said Monday that President Joe Biden didn't want the US to enter a third decade of conflict in Afghanistan and believed it was time for the Afghan army to defend the country two decades after billions of dollars of investment and training by the US.
But Sullivan said, we could not give them the will and ultimately they decided that they would not fight for Kabul.
He added that the worst-case scenario for the US would be to send thousands of troops to fight in a civil war when the Afghan army wasn't prepared to fight itself."
Sullivan says Biden faced bad choices on the subject. The president ultimately opted to bring US troops home and leave the Afghans to fight for themselves.
He says it's heartbreaking to see what's happening in Kabul but that Biden stands by his decision.
Sullivan spoke Monday on ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today.
Five killed in Kabul airport chaos
Five people were killed in chaos at Kabul airport on Monday, witnesses said, as people tried to flee after Taliban insurgents seized Kabul and declared the war against foreign and local forces over.
US Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said that the US was focused intensively on securing the Kabul airport on Monday in order to continue civilian evacuation flights for American citizens in Afghanistan, Afghans who worked alongside the US over the past 20 years and for other particularly vulnerable Afghans.
"The main focus of our efforts today are going to be getting that airport back up and running so the flights can continue," Finer told MSNBC.
Additional US forces will be flowing into the airport on Monday and Tuesday to provide security, he added.
Taliban insurgents took control of the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday following a rout of the US-backed Afghan army as foreign forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
Two gunmen killed by US forces at Kabul airport
US forces protecting the airport in Kabul have killed two gunmen in separate incidents, a US official told Reuters.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the incidents had occurred over the past 24 hours.
"Initial reports indicate armed assailants fired into the crowd," the official said.
(With inputs from Reuters, AP, PTI and IANS)
