Biden aide: US has capacity to evacuate remaining Americans
Source: AP
By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300 U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday. He also said the administration’s current plan is not to have “an ongoing embassy presence″ after the final U.S. troop withdrawal.
With Biden warning that another terrorist attack was “highly likely” after last week’s suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, Sullivan said the U.S. has shown in other countries that it is capable of “suppressing the terrorism threat ... without a large permanent presence on the ground. ... And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward.”
Biden has pledged to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose airport attack killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. Biden was traveling to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday for a “dignified transfer” movement, a military ritual of receiving the remains of fallen troops killed in foreign combat.
The Pentagon said a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday local time in retaliation for the airport bombing, and Biden said the extremists can expect more.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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