Pentagon denies Afghanistan evacuations will end in 36 hours amid Kabul airport confusion
Defense Department refutes CNN report claiming evacuations would wrap up within two days
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Your support makes all the difference.A spokesman for the Department of Defense directly refuted a CNN story on Thursday that claimed the Biden administration would conclude rescues from Kabul in 36 hours, declaring instead that the evacuations would continue until no longer needed.
John Kirby tweeted on Thursday that “[e]vacuation operations in Kabul will not be wrapping up in 36 hours”, and while not mentioning the CNN piece his comments still directly refuted the news reported by the network early on Thursday morning.
“We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,” he said.
The CNN report had cited just one unnamed US official who said that the end of the US evacuation mission would occur within 36 hours. No other details were provided by the news outlet.
Pentagon officials have remained somewhat vague as to how the last hours of the evacuations will be conducted and regarding who exactly will prevent Afghans from crowding the airstrip or protect the airport from Taliban forces when the last US troops are boarding their planes.
The Biden administration has faced questions for days regarding whether the final hours of the evacuation mission will look anything like its beginning, which was marred with images of desperate Afghan civilians stampeding on to the tarmac and attempting to cling on to departing planes. More than a half dozen died.
The president’s decision to pull out troops from Afghanistan is supported by a majority of the American public, and an even larger majority supported it earlier this year before the evacuations began. Some Republicans have backed away from the withdrawal plan begun under former President Donald Trump, however, and called for some US forces to remain in the country.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from Kabul since flights began earlier this month.
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