An American citizen who worked as an interpreter for the US military during the war in Afghanistan says she is stranded in the country after the last military plane departed Kabul airport on Monday.
The Pentagon announced on Monday afternoon that the last American troops had left Kabul airport almost 24 hours ahead of schedule, ending the U.S. war in Afghanistan after 20 years and the deaths of almost 2500 troops.
Witnesses in Kabul said the Taliban let off celebratory gunfire as news circulated that the final U.S. flight had left.
It means President Biden managed to meet his August 31 deadline and removes American personnel from danger.
But it comes at the cost of letting a militant group retake the country, after the deaths of 13 US service members last week.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday interviewed ‘Sara,’ an American national who was left stranded in Afghanistan after the US military removed the last remaining troops from the country just hours before
Taliban fighters wielding American supplied weapons, equipment and uniforms, storm into the Kabul International Airport to secure the airport and inspect the equipment that was left behind after the US military completed their withdrawal on Monday
‘I just found out that they left, and I was just silent for a while,’ the woman, who goes by the pseudonym ‘Sara,’ told CNN on Monday.
‘And I just went, walked around the rooms, and I saw the young kids are sleeping and they have no clue what happened this morning, that the last flight is gone and we’re left behind.’
‘Sara’ says that she has tried to help Afghans who had helped American forces during the 20-year war flee after the Taliban took control of Kabul.
She says there are nearly two dozen children in her home in Afghanistan, some of whom are disabled. The children have begged her to help get them out of the country.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised a ‘new chapter’ of diplomacy in Afghanistan, and vowed to continue the evacuation of Americans and allies in the country
Since she worked as an interpreter with the US military, she and anyone who comes into contact with her are in danger from the Taliban, she said.
‘We are in danger, and we need to be saved,’ the woman told CNN.
‘It’s heartbreaking.’
‘I just don’t even know what to say to you. Whoever was trying to help me and support me, even they did not tell me that…this was the last flight.
‘So I still had hope that we would leave. If not all of them, at least some kids and some mothers who had disabled kids.
‘I had hope for them.’
Sara told CNN that before the American forces departed for good, she went to the Kabul airport and tried to get the attention of US military personnel.
She said she screamed in their direction that she was an American national but that the soldiers didn’t hear her. The crowd at the gate was then dispersed using tear gas, though it is unclear who fired the irritant.
Sara said she had all of the necessary permits and documents for her and special immigrant visa applicants, but instead the military airlifted Afghans who did not have paperwork that entitled them to leave the country.
‘The last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan,’ said Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command, while Pentagon spokesman John Kirby looked on
Fireworks, gunfire and explosions erupted in Kabul’s night sky as the Taliban celebrated victory over the U.S. and declared ‘full independence’ after the final flight left the city’s airport carrying troops and diplomats just after midnight
Taliban gunmen lit up the night sky over Kabul with tracer fire after the final U.S. military transport plane left the airport
The last plane left soon after midnight on Tuesday morning to beat President Biden’s August 31 deadline for the withdrawal
‘If America could not help me when they were on the ground, how can they help me when they’re gone?’ she said.
‘Is anyone going to rescue me?’
‘I went to so many different missions with [the US] military, so many different missions in different provinces,’ she said.
‘I never had that heartbeat like I have it today, this morning, when they told me the Americans left. They left us to whom? To those people who were always wanting to kill us?
‘And now I am by myself here with 37 people.’
She added: ‘This is my fear, that if Americans could not help me when they were on the ground, how will they help me now when no one is here?
‘That’s my question.’
Earlier on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a ‘small number’ of Americans remain who want to leave the war-torn country.
‘We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave,’ he said in a speech at the State Department on Monday night – with remarks delayed for more than two hours.
The number was somewhat lower than estimates in the final hours as the Biden administration’s troop withdrawal deadline approached.
He said ‘about’ 6,000 Americans had been flown out of the country or departed in an airlift of 123,000 people.
‘A new chapter of engagement with Afghanistan has begun,’ the nation’s top diplomat proclaimed.
A C-17 Globemaster takes off as Taliban fighters secure the outer perimeter, alongside the American controlled side of of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021
ROAD TRIP! Blinken mentioned new ways out now that the US relinquished control of the airport – including ‘overland routes,’ which means driving across Afghanistan’s famously inhospitable terrain
Blinken mentioned land routes through Afghanistan’s rough terrain. Here Afghan resistance movement and anti-Taliban uprising forces personnel patrol along a road in Rah-e Tang of Panjshir province on August 29, 2021
‘The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun,’ he proclaimed.
He thanked members of the military who took on great risks to secure the Kabul airport during the evacuation, while honoring the 13 Americans who died in last week’s terror attack.
But he vowed to use diplomacy and leverage to bring out any Americans, allies, or Afghanis who assisted the US and want to leave, as critics pounded Biden for allowing the withdrawal before all Americans were out, comparing those who remained to hostages.
‘We made extraordinary efforts to give Americans every opportunity to depart the country,’ he said.
President Joe Biden attended on Sunday the dignified transfer of the remains of service members killed in the Kabul airport attack last week
Blinken said some who stayed were dual citizens and US passports who weren’t sure they wanted to go and were ‘trying to decide whether or not they wanted to leave.’
He said the US and allies plan to hold the Taliban to keep the airport open and allow safe passage. ‘Any engagement with the Taliban-led government in Kabul will be driven by one thing only – our vital national interests,’ he said.
He also mentioned new ways out – including ‘overland routes,’ which means driving across Afghanistan’s famously inhospitable terrain.’
This could involve driving east toward Pakistan – the same areas many Taliban members used to find sanctuary during the 20-year US-led war that came to a close a minute before midnight in Kabul.
‘We’re also working to identify ways to support Americans , legal permanent residents, and Afghans who have worked with us who may choose to depart via overland routes,’ he said.
‘We have no illusion that any of this will be easy or rapid,’ Blinken said, calling it an ‘entirely different phase of the evacuation.’
‘We will hold the Taliban to their commitment on freedom of movement,’ he said – on a day when US forces departed the airport in Kabul, leaving it intact, while scuttling aircraft that were left behind.
The end of the mission was announced by General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, who said the chief U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, was on the last C-17 flight out.
‘There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,’ he said.
‘We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.
‘But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days, we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out.’
The final C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport at 3:29 pm East Coast time.
‘And the last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan,’ he added.
The departure of American troops means the conflict ends with the Taliban back in power and Afghans deeply uncertain of what the future holds.
In a statement, Biden said the world would be watching how the Taliban behaved.
‘The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments,’ he said, adding that negotiations continued to keep the airport open and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.
He added that he would address the nation on Tuesday and that his military chiefs had agreed the evacuation should not be extended beyond the deadline.
‘Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops, and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead,’ he said.
Republicans were quick to accuse Biden of abandoning Americans in the city, less than two weeks after he promised to get them all out.
At the same time, the nature of the departure provoked a wave of anger from veterans of the war, many of whom were involved in frantic efforts to rescue Afghan comrades, who were waiting for their Special Immigrant Visas (SIV).
‘Nothing feels good or right about this ignominious retreat leaving American citizens, SIVers and families, and others – including military working dogs – behind,’ Ronald J Moeller, a retired CIA paramilitary operations officer who deployed to Afghanistan 12 times, told DailyMail.com.
‘Zero integrity from anyone in DC or Tampa.
‘Complete capitulation to a faulty narrative based on false assumptions and lots of wishful thinking.’
The dangers were apparent in a final week when the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the airport on behalf of its Afghan affiliate ISIS-K and terrorism experts said Al Qaeda retained a dangerous presence in the country.
The Taliban quickly declared victory after the last U.S. plane departed.
‘American soldiers left the airport, and our nation got its full independence,’ said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
Footage emerged on social media of Taliban fighters apparently making their way through Kabul airport, examining Chinook helicopters left behind by U.S. troops.
‘The last five aircraft have left, it’s over,’ Hemad Sherzad, a Taliban fighter stationed at Kabul’s international airport, told the Associated Press.
‘I cannot express my happiness in words. … Our 20 years of sacrifice worked.’
The last days of the withdrawal were the most difficult and dangerous.
Troops had to get the remaining evacuees on to planes even as their own numbers and supplies were being flown out.
Officials repeatedly warned of the risk of further suicide attacks or rocket assaults.
It was not supposed to be like this. Plans for an orderly departure evaporated as the Taliban advanced rapidly across the country as they capitalized on an Afghan army that fell apart when it knew its strongest army was leaving.
McKenzie shrugged off questions about his feelings at leaving the country in the grip of religious hardliners that American had gone to war to vanquish.
‘No words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who serve, nor the emotions they’re feeling at this moment, but I will say that I’m proud that both my son and I have been a part of it,’ he said.
He said the final plane carrying American civilians left about 12 hours before the final flight.
That could leave as many as 250 stranded in the country as negotiations continue about setting up a mechanism to allow them to leave.
‘I believe we’re going to be able to get those people out,’ said McKenzie.
‘I think we’re going to negotiate very hard, very aggressively to get our other Afghan partners out.’
Turkey has offered to run the airport but wants to deploy its own troops for security – a possible sticking point with the Taliban.
Al Qaeda IS already back in Afghanistan: Bin Laden security chief and arms supplier Amin ul-Haq RETURNS to his hometown
A close aide of Osama bin Laden has returned to his home in Afghanistan after 20 years of US occupation just hours until American forces finish their evacuation from the war-torn country by President Joe Biden’s deadline, a video purports to show.
Amin ul-Haq, a top Al Qaeda arms supplier, returned to his hometown in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on Monday just over two weeks after the Taliban completed its lightening fast offensive to take over nearly all of the country.
Ul-Haq headed bin Laden’s security when he was occupying the Tora Bora cave complex. The two men escaped together when US forces attacked the complex, according to NBC.
The Al Qaeda leader was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.
A video appears to show top bin Laden deputy Amin ul-Haq’s return to his home town 20 years after he fled US forces
In the video, a car carrying ul-Haq is seen driving through a checkpoint amid a small crowd.
At one point the car stops and ul-Haq rolls down the window. Apparent admirers crowd the vehicle’s passenger side, with men taking turns grasping and even kissing the top Al Qaeda associate’s hand.
Two men take a few steps forward along with the slow-moving car in order to take a next to ul-Haq.
The car is then followed by a procession of vehicles carrying heavily-armed fighters, some flying the Taliban’s flag.
Asked about ul-Haq’s return to Afghanistan, the Pentagon told DailyMail.com that it does not comment on intelligence matters.
His return in the last hours of the US withdrawal effort comes after roughly 122,300 people were evacuated since the end of July. Approximately 1,200 people were evacuated on US military and coalition flights as of Monday, bringing the total number of people moved out of Kabul since the Taliban’s takeover to 116,700.
Flights will continue on Monday – 17 jets are expected to take more than 3,000 people out of Kabul, the majority of whom are Afghan.
The US Treasury added ul-Haq to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists in 2001. He’s also sanctioned by the United Nations and the United Kingdom.
Since the militant group’s takeover, concerns have arisen that it would turn the country into a ripe environment for other terrorist organizations to grow.
Intelligence reports estimated an Al Qaeda resurgence within 18 to 24 months after the US withdrawal.
‘It is virtually certain that Al Qaeda will reestablish a safe haven in Afghanistan and use it to plot terrorism against the United States and others,’ former State Department coordinator Nathan Sales told the New York Times.