What final US days in Afghanistan will look like: Scaling back evacuation flights, destroying weaponry
Tom Vanden Brook , Kate Cimini | USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – In six days or less, the last American service member who boards the last flight out will mark an end to the costly 20-year U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
Under an Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, the retreat of U.S. forces is entering its final, dangerous phase. Afghans who aided the American war effort will engage in a life-or-death struggle as they and their families try to secure seats on one of the last flights out.
For civilians trying to evacuate – especially Afghan nationals – reaching the airport in the capital of Kabul has become more perilous as Taliban fighters block access roads. For those who get through Taliban checkpoints, the specter of Islamic State suicide bombers hovers over the crowds surging toward the airport.
The American withdrawal is likely to conclude with U.S. warplanes blowing up weaponry used to safeguard the evacuation, U.S. officials told USA TODAY. Though thousands of Afghans have left, many will not make it out because there won't be enough time or space on planes, they said.
As President Joe Biden aims for a complete pullout by Aug. 31, civilian evacuation flights will be curtailed, then cease, giving way to the removal of the last troops and some of their equipment, said a U.S. official who is familiar with the operation but not authorized to speak publicly.
Biden said he ordered contingency planning in case the deadline cannot be met. Meeting the timeline will depend on the Taliban's cooperation in ensuring safe passage for Americans, he said. That cooperation has been mixed at best. Taliban fighters have beaten Americans and Afghans at checkpoints leading to the airport.
The resurgent Taliban, the militants whom U.S. forces helped topple from power in 2001, have made plain that American troops will no longer be welcome after Aug. 31. Under terms of a deal struck with President Donald Trump, the Taliban have refrained from attacking U.S. forces. Unless diplomats reach an agreement for an extension of the withdrawal deadline, it's unclear what will happen.
Pentagon officials vowed a swift and devastating response if Taliban forces attacked U.S. aircraft or troops on the ground. The airport is an island in Kabul surrounded by Taliban checkpoints. Militants could unleash crowds that would overwhelm the airport, the U.S. official said, repeating the chaos on the landing strip in the first days of the evacuation.
The last days of the U.S. presence will be increasingly tense and test the Taliban's ability to maintain some semblance of order, said Seth Jones, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former adviser to the commander of U.S. Special Operations in Afghanistan. Another danger for U.S. troops: A militant group called ISIS-K, a self-proclaimed affiliate of the Islamic State, is a sworn enemy of the Taliban. U.S. officials, including Biden, have cited the threat of an attack on the airport.
"The final days are definitely dangerous, with spoiler groups like the Islamic State attempting to target the United States and embarrass the Taliban," Jones said. "It will actually be a good test of the Taliban’s counterintelligence and counterterrorism capabilities to see if they can prevent an Islamic State or other terrorist attack from occurring."
American citizens who show up at the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport would find a seat on one of the last flights out, but just about anybody else would be left behind, the U.S. official said.
Outside the airport, desperation mounts for American citizens and Afghans who aided U.S. troops. Overnight, U.S. special operators swooped into a neighborhood in Kabul to scoop up about 20 Americans unable to reach the airport, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday.
For some vulnerable Afghans, there is little hope of rescue from U.S. commandos. Instead, people such as Najeeb Rahimi, a translator who worked for the U.S. Army a decade ago, make the hazardous trek to the airport every day, braving Taliban checkpoints and hoping for a chance to escape.
Rahimi said he applied for a Special Immigrant Visa but has not received approval. Rahimi told USA TODAY by phone that he and his family stand at the airport for 12 hours at a time, under searing sun, enduring tear gas attacks and beatings by guards. His daughters, a 9-year-old and twins who are 6, have been trampled by panicked crowds and vomited from the heat.
Taliban militants discovered the family's hiding place, and they are on the run, he said.
Rahimi’s former supervisor, Jeff Trammell, a retired U.S. Army captain, said based on his experience, he fears the Taliban will rape and behead Rahimi, rape his family members and sell them into sex slavery.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces must be done in a sequenced and precise way, Kirby said. Security will be “paramount.” Late Tuesday, Kirby announced that several hundred headquarters and maintenance staff flew out of Kabul. The remaining forces protect the airport and the evacuees, he said.
Before the Taliban toppled the U.S.-backed government, about 1,000 troops protected the U.S. Embassy and airport. The embassy has been abandoned and has no American guards, Kirby said Wednesday. Since Aug. 14, the Pentagon sent in about 5,000 more troops to secure the airport after desperate throngs of Afghans mobbed U.S. cargo planes on the runway.
Some U.S. military equipment may be left behind. If it needs to be destroyed, Kirby said, “we’ll do that, and we’ll do that appropriately.”
U.S. troops fly Apache attack helicopters for protection at the airport. They used huge Chinook helicopters to extract stranded American citizens and ferry them to the airport. Some of those aircraft will probably be left, so there is space aboard C-17 cargo jets for the last troops, said a defense official who is familiar with the equipment at the airport but not authorized to speak publicly about the withdrawal.
The withdrawal becomes a math problem, the defense official said. The Air Force can safely operate a limited number of flights to the airport in Kabul each day. Bad weather, not uncommon in Afghanistan, can lower that number, the official said. There are only so many seats for troops, and vehicles and equipment become secondary concerns.
It is impossible to get all of the war materiel out, the official said.
An airstrike to destroy that equipment is likely, the defense official said. The Pentagon acknowledged that F-18 warplanes, operating from an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, patrol above Kabul. The Air Force has long-range B-1 and B-52 bombers that have flown combat sorties to Afghanistan for years from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
Troops may use incendiary hand grenades to destroy sensitive equipment such as radios, the defense official said. One such device burns at more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit and can penetrate steel.
In April, when Biden announced the withdrawal, the Pentagon planned to keep 600 troops in Kabul to protect the embassy and airport. Those plans fell apart after the Taliban seized control.
American bombs destroying American military hardware will likely be the final mission.
Via PakapNews