Last U.S. military flight leaves Kabul; Biden to address nation Tuesday

MOSCOW — Russia’s ban on the Taliban as a terrorist group has not stopped Moscow officials from stepping in to support it by calling for the freeze on Afghanistan’s financial reserves to be lifted and for Western countries to lead a global conference to help rebuild the country’s economy.

Russia’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said Monday that the international community should unfreeze the Afghan government’s reserves or risk a spike in illegal narcotics and arms traffic.

Speaking to a state-owned television network, he also called for an international conference to support Afghanistan’s recovery under the Taliban’s leadership so the United States and its allies could “correct at least some of the mistakes they have made” in the past 20 years.

The United States froze Afghan central bank reserves held in U.S. institutions on Aug. 15. The bank has about $9.5 billion in reserves, about $7 billion of which is held in U.S. institutions. The International Monetary Fund blocked Afghanistan’s access to $460 million in emergency reserves, and the World Bank halted funding to Afghanistan last week.

The threat of new conflicts, spreading terrorism and a humanitarian catastrophe that scatters millions of Afghan refugees across the region poses a nightmare scenario for Russia.

President Biden made his way on Sunday around a quiet room at Dover Air Force Base, a chamber filled with couches and chairs, with dignitaries and grieving families huddling together as the president came to speak to them privately, one family at a time.

Mark Schmitz had told a military officer the night before that he wasn’t much interested in speaking to a president he did not vote for, one whose execution of the Afghan pullout he disdains — and one he now blames for the death of his 20-year-old son, Jared.

But overnight, staying in a nondescript hotel nearby, Schmitz changed his mind. So on that dreary morning he and his ex-wife were approached by Biden after he’d talked to all the other families. But by his own account, Schmitz glared hard at the president, so Biden spent more time looking at his ex-wife, repeatedly invoking his own son, Beau, who died six years ago.

Schmitz did not want to hear about Beau — he wanted to talk about Jared. Eventually, the parents took out a photo to show to Biden. “I said, ‘Don’t you ever forget that name. Don’t you ever forget that face. Don’t you ever forget the names of the other 12,’ ” Schmitz said. “ ‘And take some time to learn their stories.’ ”

Biden did not seem to like that, Schmitz recalled, and he bristled, offering a blunt response: “I do know their stories.”

Read the full story

The Biden administration suspended embassy operations in Afghanistan on Monday and opened a new diplomatic office for Afghanistan in Qatar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an address at the State Department.

The top U.S. diplomat said the new Doha-based office would handle U.S. relations with Afghanistan, including looking after the Americans who remain in the country and are seeking to get out, a figure he said was between 100 and 200.

“We will continue our relentless efforts to help Americans, foreign nationals and Afghans to leave Afghanistan,” Blinken said.

Blinken said the U.S. posture toward a future Taliban government would be rooted in U.S. national interest, especially regarding whether the Taliban will help free American hostages and “bring security to the country.”

“We will not do it on the basis of trust or faith,” Blinken said. “Not on what the Taliban government says, but what it does.” The decision amounts to a diplomatic role reversal as the Taliban’s political leadership relocates to Afghanistan from Qatar and U.S. diplomats move from Kabul to the Qatari capital. Blinken said Ian McCary, the former No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, would lead the new U.S. Doha office.

The last U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan departed at 11:59 p.m. in Kabul, with the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division and the acting U.S. ambassador on the last aircraft, said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the chief of U.S. Central Command.

Army Maj. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue and Ross Wilson, the top diplomat in Kabul, left with other U.S. troops on a C-17 as U.S. strike aircraft flew overhead to provide security, McKenzie said. The aircraft and four other jets were part of what the military calls the “joint tactical exfiltration,” and carried no American civilians, he said.

The planes took off amid a pervasive threat from the Islamic State. McKenzie told reporters that there are at least 2,000 Islamic State fighters free in Afghanistan after prison breaks this month while the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

The Taliban provided security on the outskirts of the airport as the U.S. military departed, McKenzie said.

“They established a firm perimeter outside of the airfield to prevent people from coming onto the airfield during our departure, and we worked on that with them for a number of days,” McKenzie said. “They did not have direct knowledge of our time of departure — we chose to keep that information very restricted — but they were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations.”

About 800 U.S. troops were on the last five C-17s departing Kabul, said a U.S. defense official familiar with the operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. They departed Afghan airspace before 1 a.m. local time.

As the planes took off, the U.S. military had a fleet of aircraft overhead that included a mix of MQ-9 Reaper drones, B-52 bombers, AC-130 gunships and F-15 fighters, the defense official said. “They were all there at the end,” the official said, describing it as a way to deter attacks.

Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, a Navy SEAL officer who had commanded forces in Afghanistan during the evacuation, departed Kabul on Sunday, the official said.

From 2019: Americans who fought in Afghanistan wait to see how their war ends

Shortly after the last U.S. flight out of Kabul, Biden said there was unanimity among U.S. military leaders to end the Afghanistan airlift mission as planned.

In a statement, the president thanked the commanders and U.S. services members for evacuating more than 120,000 Americans and Afghan allies over 17 days, insisted that all agreed the mission should end by the Aug. 31 deadline that he had announced and said he would address the nation Tuesday.

“Our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended,” Biden said. Ahead of his remarks, he added, “For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned. 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.”

The president said the Taliban has made commitments on safe passage of any Americans, Afghan partners and other foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan. “The world will hold them to their commitments,” Biden said.

The president urged Americans to join him in “grateful prayer” for an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands more than imagined, the network of volunteers and veterans who assisted, and those who will welcome refugees in the United States and other countries.

He also expressed gratitude for the 13 Americans who lost their lives in Thursday’s terrorist attack, mentioning them each by name.

The top general overseeing operations in Afghanistan said Monday that while the U.S. military’s evacuation operation there is over, other components of the U.S. government will continue looking for ways to extricate Americans and Afghan allies who are still there.

“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” said Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.”

McKenzie said the “diplomatic sequel” to the military’s rescue effort is underway and will focus on bringing out Americans, who number in the “low hundreds,” and Afghans.

McKenzie predicted that the United States will negotiate with the Taliban to get others out, with the State Department taking the lead.

The military’s rescue operation in Afghanistan was the largest noncombatant evacuation operation in its history, McKenzie said. The military evacuated 79,000 people through Hamid Karzai International Airport, including about 6,000 Americans, he added.

The Biden administration has said the overall effort, counting charter flights and allied efforts, evacuated more than 122,000 people.

“The numbers I provided represent a monumental accomplishment, but they do not do justice to the determination, the grit, the flexibility, and the professionalism of the U.S. military and our coalition partners, who were able to rapidly combine efforts and evacuate so many under difficult conditions,” McKenzie said.

No American civilians were onboard the last five military flights out of Kabul, according to Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.

“We maintained the ability to bring them in until immediately before departure,” McKenzie told reporters of the last exiting aircraft, which he referred to as “joint tactical exfiltration.”

“We would have been prepared to bring them on until the very last minute,” he added. “But none of them made it to the airport.”

McKenzie estimated that the U.S. citizens left in Afghanistan “number in the very low hundreds.” He stressed that the United States will continue trying to extract them and “negotiate very hard and aggressively” to get eligible Afghans to come to the United States.

“We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out,” he acknowledged. But it will be up to the State Department, McKenzie said, to get those left behind.

“The military’s phase of this operation has ended. … The diplomatic sequel to that will now begin,” he said. “The weapons have just shifted, if you will, from the military realm to the diplomatic realm.”

McKenzie said the last two on the ground were Army Maj. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, who was in charge of overseeing the Kabul airport operation, and Ross Wilson, head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Afghanistan.

“The State and Defense team came out on the last aircraft and were, in fact, the last people to stand on the ground, step onto an airplane,” McKenzie said.

The U.S. military flew its final evacuation flight out of Afghanistan on Monday, pulling out all U.S. diplomats and military personnel and bringing an end to America’s longest war, the Pentagon said.

The departure caps a chaotic withdrawal that was rushed by the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country and scarred by a deadly suicide attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans on Thursday, as well as a drone strike on alleged Islamic State fighters on Sunday that also killed several children, according to surviving family members.

“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11, 2001,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command.

More than 122,000 people were evacuated since Aug. 14, amounting to one of the largest airlifts in history, but the deteriorating security situation and pandemonium at the airport resulted in thousands of Afghan allies and fewer than 250 Americans being left behind, said a senior State Department official.

Efforts to assist people hoping to escape the Taliban’s rule grew more urgent as renewed militant threats left Afghans largely shut out of evacuation flights. Rockets were fired at the airport Sunday night in a bloodless attack for which the Islamic State later claimed responsibility.

The full evacuation of U.S. diplomats underscored the dangerous environment that American forces left behind just weeks after State Department spokesman Ned Price announced Aug. 12 that the U.S. Embassy would remain open and that its staff would “continue our diplomatic work in Afghanistan.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to provide remarks later Monday on the future of U.S. diplomatic relations with Afghanistan and efforts to help Americans and Afghan allies still seeking to get out of the country.