US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday described the situation at the congested Kabul airport as “incredibly unstable”, where thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans tried to flee the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, where many were killed.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on Sunday, two weeks before the US prepared to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war.
Insurgents stormed the country, capturing all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the US and its allies melted away.
Thousands of Afghan nationals and foreigners are fleeing the country to escape the new Taliban regime and seek refuge in various countries, including the US and several European countries, resulting in total chaos at the Kabul airport and reportedly seven fresh deaths.
“Crowds have gathered at the gates outside the airport. It’s an incredibly volatile situation, it’s an incredibly fluid situation. We’ve seen gruesome images of people hurting, even killing people that hit you in the gut. And it’s very important to make sure that we use our ability to the best of our ability, because it’s such a volatile situation, that we do something about the congestion at the airport gates, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Blinken said. told Fox News in an interview.
“First of all, the more we get people out of airports who are already inside, the more we reduce congestion inside the airport, the more we can get people inside the airport and some congestion at the gates. But second and most important, we are in direct contact with Americans and others to help them get to the airport, the right place, the right time, more safely and effectively.
Defending US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, which many say was unplanned and hasty, resulting in the Taliban seizing power, Blinken said more than two dozen Countries were working with America in getting people out of Kabul.
“We’ve got an agreement with about two dozen countries in four continents that are helping now or soon going to help people transit from Kabul and that’s a way to make sure we have a way to relocate people. There is sufficient flight capacity for their destinations to their final destinations,” he said.
“We are taking them to places where we can process them, do security checks and that too will make things go more smoothly. This will bring the flow to the point where we hope and hope that some of these scenes of overcrowding, which are so dangerous, can be reduced,” Blinken said.
Around 8,000 people on board about 60 flights have been evacuated from Kabul airport in the last 24 hours.
About 30,000 people on military flights and charter flights that the US helped organize have left the airport since the evacuation effort began in late July.
“We have now asked through authorization that the president has airlines to help transport people not (outside) of Kabul, but through security checks from these third country sites where we are processing them. leaving,” Blinken said.
He said there would be plenty of time to look back to see who was saying what and when and what should have been done differently.
“What really happened, what could have been done differently, is going to be a lot of time to learn from this chapter and take account of them,” he said.
“Let me just tell you, I am focused on one thing and one thing only – and that is to get people out of Afghanistan, get your people out, get your allies out, do it as fast as you can. We do what we can to do it as effectively as possible, to do it as safely as possible,” he insisted.
Blinken said the Biden administration is not escaping accountability. “It’s not about escaping accountability. In our system, thankfully, there’s accountability, there will always be accountability, but there’s a time and place for everything in a time and place, that’s the mission right now, and I’m a part of this country.” Seeing people rallying for it. I see allies and partners from all over the world rallying for it. This should be our focus,” he said.
Blinken said the US went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with a mission and a purpose, which was to deal with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and bring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to justice.
He said this was accomplished a decade ago and to reduce al-Qaeda’s ability to strike the US again from Afghanistan.
“And that, to the President’s point, has succeeded. We found bin Laden a decade ago… Al Qaeda’s ability to do what it did on 9/11, to attack us, to attack our allies. For, our allies, from Afghanistan, have been substantially reduced,” he said.
“Are there al-Qaeda members and remnants in Afghanistan? Yes, but what the president was referring to was his ability to do what he did on 9/11, and that ability has been reduced very successfully, “They said.
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