The Navy is flying armed F/A-18 fighters from the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group over Kabul as more troops arrive at Hamid Karzai International Airport and the military ramps up its pace of evacuations.
Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor and Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby stressed at a Pentagon briefing Thursday that the sorties are not meant to be shows of force against the Taliban. The fighters are not conducting low passes over the city, Taylor said, refuting some reports online, and the Navy has been flying the fighters since the evacuation began.
But if a situation on the ground were to unfold that required a quick response, Taylor said it would be prudent to have the aircraft already overhead.
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There have been no further security breaches at the airport, following two separate incidents Monday involving two armed individuals who were killed by U.S. troops.
The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed to Military.com a Washington Post report that an unidentified U.S. service member injured in one of those encounters was a Marine who was grazed in the leg by a bullet, was treated, and remains at the airport.
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Kirby left the door open to the military flying other kinds of fighters above the city if necessary, but declined to answer whether the military is prepared to conduct airstrikes over Kabul.
The discussion about the fighter jet flights underscored the extraordinarily tense situation that has unfolded in Kabul, now under a shaky truce between U.S. and allied troops inside the city's main airport, and the Taliban forces just outside the perimeter.
However, the Pentagon is drawing a firm line in the sand, saying there are no plans either to expand its military control beyond the airport or send troops into the city. Such moves could trigger a dangerous faceoff between American troops and Taliban fighters, who have otherwise ceded the airport for the time being.
The Taliban have beaten and shot at Afghans attempting to flee to the airport. However, they have vowed not to stop or harass any Americans, although reports have emerged of Americans having difficulty getting past Taliban checkpoints. Kirby told reporters that the Pentagon cannot say for certain whether all Americans are able to make it to the airport safely.
The Defense Department aims to fly as many people out of Afghanistan as possible before Aug. 31. That includes American civilians and Afghans who helped with the war effort and are likely to be targeted by the Taliban. Yet the Pentagon does not have an accurate number on how many people need to be evacuated from the country, making it difficult to figure out when the mission might be complete. President Joe Biden on Wednesday opened the door to keeping U.S. troops in Kabul beyond Aug. 31.
Anti-Taliban resistance movements already may be forming. In a Washington Post op-ed, Ahmad Massoud -- son of the mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by the Taliban in a bombing days before 9/11 -- announced the formation of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan and pledged to fight the Taliban from his base in the Panjshir Valley.
Massoud claimed in the Post that his resistance movement has ammunition and arms stockpiled, and is being joined by former members of the Afghan special forces -- consistently lauded as some of the nation's most effective fighters -- and regular Afghan army soldiers "who were disgusted by the surrender of their commanders and are now making their way to the hills of Panjshir with their equipment."
Kirby told reporters the Pentagon has seen the reports about resistance movements. But he wouldn't directly answer when asked whether the U.S. would support them, and said the military is focused solely on evacuating noncombatants.
Taylor said there are now more than 5,200 total U.S. troops on the ground at the airport, which he said remains secure.
The airport has multiple gates through which Americans, other foreign nationals and Afghans seeking to flee the country can enter, which Taylor said will speed up the processing of people entering the airport.
He said 13 that C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft landed at the airport over the preceding 24 hours, bringing in troops and equipment. Twelve C-17s also took off from the airport, carrying more than 2,000 passengers, and landed at "safe havens" elsewhere in the Middle East. That averages out to more than 167 people per flight, which is closer to the typical passenger load C-17s carry than the aircraft packed with some 640 Afghans in a now-iconic photo of one of the early evacuation flights.
Since evacuations began Saturday, Taylor said the military has evacuated about 7,000 people in all, including Americans and people of other nations.
The military hopes soon to be able to fly at least one C-17 out of the Kabul airport per hour and evacuate between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day, but it is not there yet. And the most recent 12 C-17 flights out is less than the 18 that departed in the previous 24-hour period.
However, it remains far from clear that those thousands of people to fill the planes -- particularly Afghans -- could get to the airport. Reports are flooding out of Kabul of Taliban-operated checkpoints, stopping Afghans and looking for those who fought against them or aided the United States. And video has emerged showing Taliban members beating Afghans trying to make an escape.
"We intend to maximize each plane's capacity," Taylor said. "We're prioritizing people above all else. And we're focused on doing this as safely as possible, with absolute urgency."
Since the end of July, nearly 12,000 people -- including U.S. citizens, embassy personnel, Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, applicants and other evacuees -- have been moved out of Afghanistan. That is when the Defense Department started helping the State Department get Afghans who had applied for the visas to come to America.
SIVs are for Afghans who served the U.S. in interpreter or other jobs, and whose lives are now at risk from the Taliban seeking retribution, to allow them to come to America.
Military and State Department officials also are working together to make sure people's food, sleeping and other needs are taken care of while they wait for flights at the airport.
But that support could be needed for thousands of civilians, on top of the thousands of troops deployed, for nearly two more weeks -- perhaps longer, if not all Americans are evacuated by Aug. 31, the intended end of the mission.
-- Stephen Losey can be reached at stephen.losey@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenLosey.
-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.
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