Biden Team Sees Narrow Window for Deal on Cease-Fire and Hostages in Gaza The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Belgium ends evacuation efforts amid "imminent suicide bomb attack" threat
• Remarks by President Biden on Tropical Storm Henri and the Evacuation Operation in Afghanistan
• news Alerts
• With 36 hours left to evacuate and gates now closed, an estimated 150 Americans need to get to Kabul airport – source
• U.S. readies plans for mass evacuations if Gaza war escalates
• Map Shows Where Internet Service Fees Are Due to Rise

Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan. As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st — as well as embassy personnel, Allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years — I had authorized 6,000 troops — American troops — to Kabul to help secure the airport. We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and their president flee amid the corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to U.S. personnel and our Allies. But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality — even that one. The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.

Belgium ends evacuation efforts amid "imminent suicide bomb attack" threat

Blinken added there were another 1,000 who might need help, but whose citizenship or desire to leave were uncertain. Given the rate of evacuation overnight, the 150 operational total may be a revised update on Blinken’s total of 500, and may even include some of the 1,000 uncertain cases. The source said the estimate is the number known to need assistance to reach the airport as of 8 a.m. They had been operating in Afghanistan under UN, NATO and bilateral agreements since 2002 to provide the "peace, welfare and stability of the Afghan people," according to a statement from Turkey's National Defense Ministry Wednesday. According to a top Turkish official, Turkey could stay on and help provide technical support to the Taliban in operating Hamid Karzai International Airport after its troops withdraw, Turkish state-run media Anadolu reported Thursday. Tajikistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan to the latter’s northeast, is approaching the 30-year anniversary of its independence on September 9.

Remarks by President Biden on Tropical Storm Henri and the Evacuation Operation in Afghanistan

The two presidents also agreed to continue their exchanges moving forward in order to ensure regional “stability and security,” according to the Elysée. This brings the Belgian evacuation total to 23 flights and 1,400 passengers. This brings the total number of British evacuations in the last week to 12,279, he added.

news Alerts

U.S. suspends security cooperation with Niger as Europeans evacuate - The Washington Post

U.S. suspends security cooperation with Niger as Europeans evacuate.

Posted: Tue, 01 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

But the way to do that is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support. Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan. The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans. We don’t take them by their word alone but by their actions, and we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met. The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals. Opt in to send and receive text messages from President Biden.

Photos: Passengers evacuated after American Airlines flight makes emergency landing

There were people at the top of the structure, and they were immediately escorted out. The entire National Mall area around the monument was evacuated and will not open again until park service confirms the safety of the structure. "I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken," Kraft posted to social media. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

That brings the total to more than 95,700 people evacuated since Aug. 14 and over 101,300 since the end of July. Russian intelligence agencies are monitoring the situation and assessing whether the a threat of terrorist attacks is spilling over to other countries, Peskov said. As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them. No country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done.

U.S. readies plans for mass evacuations if Gaza war escalates

Our strategy has to change too.We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries. We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground — or very few, if needed.We’ve shown that capacity just in the last week. We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans. The situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous, and the threat of terrorist attacks on the airport remains high.

The White House was partially evacuated early on Wednesday morning after a drone reportedly entered a restricted area, leading Secret Service agents to carry out a sweep. "Promise you there is going to be a reckoning," McCarthy, who spoke to Biden by phone on Thursday, told members on the GOP conference call, according to sources. More than 18,700 evacuees from Afghanistan have come through Ramstein US Air Base in southwestern Germany so far, according to the air base's Public Affairs Office (PAO). The planes also carried four Portuguese soldiers and 85 Afghans and their families who had worked with NATO countries.

Biden's ‘swaggering faith in himself’ left White House ill-prepared as Taliban took over Afghanistan: bombshell book - New York Post

Biden's ‘swaggering faith in himself’ left White House ill-prepared as Taliban took over Afghanistan: bombshell book.

Posted: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The Taliban officials said one sticking point was the insistence of the National Resistance Front that a national holiday in Afghanistan honoring Masoud's father – Ahmad Shah Masoud – continue to be recognized. The Netherlands meanwhile expects its last evacuation flight out of Afghanistan will leave on Thursday, the government said in a letter to parliament. "I can only say that the threat is severe. We will do our best to protect those who are there. There is every chance that as further reporting comes in, we may be able to change the advice and process people anew, but there is no guarantee of that. As thousands of Afghan citizens flee the country ahead of the United States' self-imposed August 31 deadline to wrap up its operation in the country, the world is braced for what will become a huge refugee crisis. This isn't the first time a drone has prompted a reaction from the Secret Service. In January 2015 a man crashed a drone on the grounds of the White House after losing control of it.

The leaders discussed Rafah and the President reiterated his clear position. A growing number of leaders and organizations have called on Columbia University and its president to protect students amid reports of antisemitic and offensive statements and actions on and near its campus, which has been the site this week of a pro-Palestinian encampment and protest. President Biden and his national security team see a narrow window to finally seal an agreement that would at least temporarily halt the war in Gaza and possibly end it for good even as they deflect pressure from college campus protests to abandon Israel in its fight against Hamas. Rear Adm. Peter Vasely called the outreach a “distraction” that “created competition for already stressed resources.” His comments appear in sworn testimony provided for a U.S. Army investigation of the Aug. 26 suicide bombing that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members outside Kabul’s international airport.

The source said the evacuation operation – although already winding down -- would end Friday. The source added the British were departing on Thursday night. The Danish Ministry of Defense told CNN Thursday that the flight to Islamabad took off close to 6 p.m. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also now advised against travel to Kabul airport, following suit with the US and UK due to an ongoing terror threat from ISIS-K.

Beyond vaccines, the Administration has facilitated the availability of and access to widespread testing and treatments, which enabled families to protect themselves, slow the spread of the virus, and ensure that infections, when they occur, are relatively mild. After the COVID-19 PHE ends, access to COVID-19 vaccinations and certain treatments, such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio, will generally not be affected. Following a week of protests at Yale University, some of its students established a 24-tent encampment in New Haven, Connecticut, in solidarity with Columbia’s protesters over the weekend. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who grilled Shafik at a congressional hearing last week over antisemitism on campus, said Sunday that Shafik's response to the rhetoric has been ineffective and called on her to resign. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a Columbia alum whose name is on the Jewish student center he helped to fund, said in a statement Monday that he no longer supports the university. “We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe,” the spokesperson said.

Germany will leave a plane housing an intensive care unit, called 'MedEvac,' in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent for 24 hours in order to support American forces if necessary, Germany’s defense ministry tweeted Friday. That brings the total number of people evacuated via US military and coalition flights to 105,000 since August 14, and 110,600 since late July, per the White House. Our Operation Allied Rescue [Allies Refuge] ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden. We got out locally employed staff of the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States, out as well.