Biden to stick with Aug. 31 deadline for Afghanistan
WASHNGTON, DC -- President Biden has decided to stick with his self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline for a military withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. officials told ABC News, despite pressure from European allies and pleas on the ground to extend the time for evacuations.
Biden met with G7 leaders earlier Tuesday to discuss extending the Aug. 31 deadline as the Taliban held a press conference from Kabul where a spokesperson warned they would "take a serious position" if America's military's presence continued beyond the end of the month.
Sources said Biden needed to decide whether to extend the deadline by Tuesday in order to give the military enough time to continue or pack up. It's unclear if the U.S. will be able to complete all of its evacuations in one week's time.
At an earlier briefing at the Pentagon, press secretary John Kirby also said there had been "no change to the timeline of the mission."
"We understand the challenges of time and space here. We're mindful of that. That's why we are trying to continue to keep up this capacity and even improve it if we can," Kirby said, when asked about the evacuations of thousands of Americans, Special Immigrant Visa holders and vulnerable Afghans.
He would not say specifically how much time the Pentagon needs a heads-up to get out the 6,000 American troops from Kabul, but he did acknowledge that "roughly speaking you need at least several days to get the amount of forces and equipment that we have at the airport to get that safely and effectively retrograded."
All U.S. citizens contacted
Every American citizen in Afghanistan who registered with the U.S. Embassy has now been contacted by State Department consular officers and given instructions on how to get to the airport in Kabul, according to an internal government report obtained by ABC News.
"U.S. citizen evacuation operations are ongoing. Embassy Kabul continues to advise U.S. citizens to avoid travel to the airport/airport gates until they receive individual instructions," said the report from the State Department's task force -- timestamped at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Some U.S. citizens have continued to experience "delays at checkpoints but have eventually reached" the airport, it added.
In total, over 5,100 U.S. citizens have now been evacuated, including U.S. embassy personnel and contractors, according to the notice.
But all gates remained closed in general, with the U.S. evacuations prioritizing U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and their families. That closure has helped to reduce the crowds outside the gates, the report said.
Thousands of evacuees, including Americans and Afghans, are now flowing through Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., it said.
