Clarissa Ward to Pentagon: I'm the one who has to look our allies in the eyes
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What you need to know
With the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, most countries are evacuating their citizens and shutting their embassies temporarily.
The fate of many Afghan people who worked with foreign governments remains uncertain. The Taliban has promised “amnesty,” but details are still unclear.
President Biden has spoken with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — his first known call with a foreign counterpart since the fall of Kabul.
CNN has compiled a list of organizations working to help Afghan refugees. Find out more here.
Our live coverage of the situation in Afghanistan has moved here.
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26 people have arrived in the UAE from Afghanistan on an Australian Air Force flight
From CNN's Angus Watson and Chandler Thornton
An Australian evacuation flight retrieving people from Afghanistan arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, according to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
There were 26 people onboard the Royal Australian Air Force C-130 including Australian citizens, Afghan nationals with visas and one foreign official working in an international agency, Morrison added.
This is the first of an undisclosed number of Australian evacuation flights.
On Monday, the Australian military said it will be deploying more than 250 personnel “to support urgent Australian Government efforts to evacuate Australian citizens and visa holders from Afghanistan.”
CORRECTION: This post has been updated to reflect that the flight landed in the UAE.
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A former translator said the Taliban killed his brother in 2014
(CNN)
Srosh, a former translator and interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan, came to the United States as refugee six years ago. His family remains in his country of birth, but Srosh still works in the United States.
Srosh said the Taliban shot his brother in the face in 2014, in a case of mistaken identity – the terror group thought they had killed Srosh. The Taliban recently burned down his home.
Srosh shared his story with CNN’s Don Lemon. Watch it here:
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Former translator for US forces in Afghanistan says, "I feel like we were abandoned"
(CNN)
Sam used to be an Afghan interpreter for the US military. He helped American troops because he thought it would help his home country and because he was promised protection.
Though Sam is now an American citizen and living in the United States, his family remains in Afghanistan. With the Taliban’s takeover, he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo he’s worried about their safety.
Though the Taliban has promised “amnesty” to others after its takeover, details are unclear – and Sam does not believe the terror group will keep its word.
Sam is not his real name. The man requested CNN use a pseudonym to protect his family, who face possible “retribution” now that the Taliban has taken control.
He said getting help has been a logistical nightmare.
Watch Sam’s interview with Cuomo here:
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Army chief of staff thanks soldiers for their service in Afghanistan
From CNN's Oren Liebermann
Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville thanked soldiers for their service over the past two decades of war in Afghanistan, calling the sacrifices they’ve made a “lasting legacy of honor and commitment for all to remember.”
McConville tweeted the letter that he addressed to the force, as well as to family members, veterans, and Americans, Gen. McConville acknowledged how difficult the withdrawal from Afghanistan may be, asking soldiers to check on each other and Army veterans.
The letter is the first public statement from a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff following the fall of Kabul.
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The US military evacuated about 1,100 people on Tuesday from Afghanistan
From CNN's DJ Judd
The United States military evacuated evacuated approximately 1,100 US citizens, permanent residents and their families on 13 flights from Afghanistan on Tuesday, a White House official said.
Twelve of those flights were C-17 sorties and one was a C-130.
To date, more than 3,200 people have been evacuated and nearly 2,000 Afghan special immigrants have been relocated to the United States.
The White House expects those daily numbers to escalate.
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US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has clarified comments on evacuating all Americans from Afghanistan
From CNN's DJ Jud
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan clarified remarks during today’s briefing on if the United States intended to keep troops in Afghanistan until all American citizens and Afghan allies were safely evacuated, writing, “When I was asked about whether we’re going to get all Americans out of Afghanistan I said ‘that’s what we intend to do’ and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Asked during the briefing if US troops would remain in country until the mission was complete, Sullivan told CBS News’ Weijia Jiang, “I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals. What I’m going to do is stay focused on the task at hand, which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible. And we will take that day by day.”
Pressed in a follow up exchange with another reporter if the US would commit to ensuring that any Americans on the ground in Afghanistan were safely evacuated, Sullivan told reporters at Tuesday’s briefing, “that’s what we’re doing right now. We have asked them all to come to the airport to get on flights and take them home. That’s what we intend to do.”
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US taking steps to keep cash away from the Taliban
From CNN's Jeff Zeleny
The United States Treasury has taken steps to prevent cash reserves managed by the Federal Reserve and other US banks out of the hands of the Taliban, officials tell CNN — a sign of the government-wide effort underway after the Afghanistan government.
As the Biden administration struggles to bring order to the chaos in Kabul, the move to effectively freeze assets is one example of something the US government can control.
The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reported on the action earlier today.
CNN reported earlier this week that the abrupt collapse of the Afghanistan government on Sunday had raised questions from several veterans of previous administrations about assets of the Afghan Central Bank and whether any of the money could end up in the hands of the Taliban.
The “vast majority” of the Afghan Central Bank assets are not held in Afghanistan, a US official familiar with the matter told CNN. The assets in the US have been essentially blocked by reach of the Taliban.
Separately, a Biden administration official said Sunday that any assets the Afghan government has in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.
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US destroyed some Afghans' passports as they prepared to evacuate embassy in Kabul — but it's unclear why
From CNN's Nicole Gaouette, Kylie Atwood and Natasha Bertrand
The closed entrance gate of the US Embassy is pictured after the US evacuated its personnel in Kabul on August 15.
(Wakil Koshar/AFP/Getty Images)
American personnel destroyed the passports of some Afghans when they were getting rid of all sensitive materials at the US Embassy in Kabul in preparation for a full evacuation, according an update that Rep. Andy Kim’s office is sharing with people who request assistance with evacuations from Afghanistan.
It is unclear why the passports were destroyed, but it is possible diplomats determined it would have been dangerous for the documents to fall into the hands of Taliban members, who could then target those Afghans.
Not having a passport creates major complications for Afghans who are desperately and urgently trying to get out of the country.
Rep. Tom Malinowski said that the US will have to come up with ways to verify the identity of Afghans whose passports were burned.
“We are going to have to take people without passports and vet them in other ways, like with their phone numbers for example. In many cases we know their contact information and their phone numbers and that is how we will have to identify them. Any Afghans braving the trip to the airport will not have wanted to go there with identifying documents, anyway,” Malinowski told CNN.
The US is not protecting the fully evacuated US Embassy in Kabul, but the compound is in a heavily fortified area, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about the destruction of the passports.
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US military flights evacuated more than 1,000 people from Afghanistan Tuesday, State Department says
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler:
US military flights on Tuesday “evacuated approximately more than 1,000 people, including 330 U.S. citizens and permanent residents,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement Tuesday.
This is an increase from the number provided by the administration earlier in the day.
Price said the US has “evacuated more than 3,000 people so far, including our personnel.”
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Biden has his first known call with a foreign counterpart since the fall of Kabul
From CNN's Kaitlan Collins
In his first known call with a foreign counterpart since the fall of Kabul, President Biden has spoken with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to read outs from the White House and Downing Street.
The leaders “discussed the need for continued close coordination among allies and democratic partners on Afghanistan policy going forward,” according to the statement from the White House.
The two agreed to have a virtual meeting with G7 leaders next week.
Here’s the full White House readout:
UPDATE: This post has been updated to include the readout from the White House.
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US opens investigation into human remains found in wheel well of plane that departed Kabul
From CNN's Oren Liebermann
The US Air Force Office of Special Investigations is opening an investigation into human remains found in the wheel well of a C-17 that took off from Kabul’s international airport, the Air Force said in a statement.
The remains were discovered after the plane landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The crew made the decision to take off because of the deteriorating security situation at the airport after hundreds of Afghans breached the perimeter and surrounded the C-17. Video of Afghans running with the plane went viral, as did video of appearing to show Afghan civilians falling from the side of the plane in mid-air after desperately trying to hold on.
Note: This is a different flight from the C-17 which was packed with 640 people on board as it flew out. That flight left Sunday night.
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Key things to know about Taliban leadership as the regime takes shape in Afghanistan
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, center, gestures as he addresses the first press conference in Kabul onTuesday, August 17.
Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images
In the two decades since they were ousted from power, the Taliban have been waging an insurgency against the allied forces and the US-backed Afghan government.
The Taliban are led by Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a senior religious cleric from the Taliban’s founding generation.
At the time, Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network said the new Taliban leader might be able to “integrate the younger and more militant generation.”
It marks the first time Baradar has set foot in the country for 20 years and comes 11 years after he was arrested in neighboring Pakistan by the country’s security forces.
He was a prominent member of the Taliban regime when it was last in power, and his return will fuel concerns that the nature of the new government will mirror that era. Baradar currently heads the group’s political committee, and recently met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Across Afghanistan, people are waiting to find out what kind of regime they will live under — and whether those who supported the US-backed government over the past 20 years will face retribution from the Taliban.
After the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996 until 2001, the Sunni Islamist organization put in place strict rules. Women had to wear head-to-toe coverings, weren’t allowed to study or work and were forbidden from traveling alone. TV, music and non-Islamic holidays were also banned.
Through televised briefings, statements and press conferences, Taliban officials made assurances on Tuesday that retribution was not on the cards.
The group’s deputy leader Maulvi Mohammad Yaqub told fighters not to “enter into homes of people or confiscate their cars,” in an audio message distributed widely through Taliban channels.
But those promises have been met with skepticism by the international community, and instances of intimidation have already begun.
Read more about the Taliban and their control of Afghanistan here.
CNN’s Julia Hollingsworth, Rob Picheta, Celine Alkhaldi, Nada Bashir and Nina Avramova contributed to this post.
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Spain extends offer to EU to temporarily host some evacuated Afghan nationals
From CNN’s Claudia Rebaza and Nada Bashir
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has expressed his government’s intention to temporarily host evacuated Afghan nationals who have worked for the European Union.
The Prime Minister’s remarks come after a virtual meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan.
In an earlier statement, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Member States would make “every possible effort” to ensure the security of all Afghan nationals who have worked with the EU, including offering them shelter within Europe.
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Former US ambassador to Afghanistan will head to Kabul to lead logistics and consular efforts
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler and Christian Sierra
John Bass, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan
(Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images/FILE)
The State Department is dispatching career diplomat John Bass – who formerly served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan – to Kabul “to lead logistics coordination and consular efforts,” spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday.
The current top envoy in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, will remain as well and “will continue to lead our diplomatic engagement.”
Price noted that State Department “staff on the ground is communicating with American citizens in Kabul who are not at the airport with instructions on when and how to get there.”
“We have communicated to the first tranche of American citizens who have requested evacuation assistance,” he said.
“All remaining embassy staff will be assisting departures from Afghanistan and the department is surging resources and consular affairs personnel to augment the relocation of American citizens and Afghan special immigrants, special immigrants and elsewhere, adding personnel to assist with P1, P2 adjudication processing,” he said. “We successfully relocated many of our locally employed staff and are in direct contact with the remainder to determine who is interested in relocation and the process for doing so.”
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Top US general met with Taliban senior leaders in Doha Sunday ahead of Kabul airport visit today
From CNN's Ellie Kaufman
Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, visited Hamid Karzai International Airport on Tuesday, according to a release from US Central Command.
Ahead of his visit today, the US general met with Taliban senior leaders in Doha Sunday and cautioned the leaders “against interference in our evacuation, and made it clear to them that any attack would be met with overwhelming force in the defense of our forces,” the release said.
McKenzie engaged with “US military leaders on the ground” at HKIA today, the release said.
McKenzie said US military air traffic controllers and “ground handlers are rapidly scaling up operations to ensure the smooth flow of military reinforcements to the airport and the evacuation of US and partner civilians in coordination” with the State Department, the release said.
The airfield is currently secure and “open to civilian air traffic,” the release said.
US Central Command oversees US military operations in the Middle East.
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Former Trump defense secretary: Biden owns "mess" in Afghanistan
From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury
Mark Esper during his interview with Christiane Amanpour.
CNN
Former Trump defense secretary Mark Esper said that President Biden “owns” the situation unfolding in Afghanistan during an exclusive interview with CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
“Of course there were more options between the two binary choices presented by the President. Just better planning and extending the timeline and taking a more thoughtful approach and not relying on simple assumptions, would have prevented this disastrous outcome that we’re seeing unfolding… before us right now. It’s a humanitarian crisis that I fear will grow worse in the coming days and weeks,” Esper said.
Esper told Amanpour that the Afghan people deserved better leadership over the past 20 years and “to put this all on” Afghan forces is “shifting the blame”.
“We saw them fight with the United States and allied support,” he said.
Amanpour pressed Esper on the negotiations the Trump administration started with the Taliban in 2020 and how that impacted the current situation on the ground: “This was started under your administration, the President you served. Can you take us into the conversations that were underway that even imagined that this would result in anything other than what we have seen today?”
Esper said that he ultimately agreed with the overall policy of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, but added, “Just because negotiations began under the Trump administration does not ignore the fact that, again, President Biden owns this situation, implementation of his withdrawal that we now see unfolding before us.”
Esper continued, “That said, the Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban in February of 2020. It was a political agreement. It was based on a premise that I, and many others inside and outside the government, shared and that was that the only way forward was going to be a political agreement. Not a military solution imposed by the United States and the Afghan government. But a political solution and the Taliban signed up to that.”
That agreement included US troop reductions and the Taliban agreeing to make sure Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorists. “I was very clear at the time that this agreement had to be conditions based. That both sides need to meet their ends of the agreement,” Esper said.
“I thought, that despite it not being a perfect deal, or great deal, it was a good enough deal,” he noted.
Esper said that he believed Trump’s continued efforts to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan “undermined the agreement” and that is why he objected to Trump’s push to pull troops by Christmas 2020. Esper said he believed that US forces should not go below 4,500 troops until conditions were met by the Taliban.
“That said, President Biden coming into office, he was not necessarily bound to continue the Trump plan. He was not necessarily bound to implement the political agreement. He could have taken…. a different path. He could have tried to go back to the table with the Taliban and renegotiate,” Esper said.
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White House pushes back against criticism from Democrats on Afghanistan
From CNN's DJ Judd
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021.
Susan Walsh/AP
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back against criticism from members of President Biden’s own party on the rapid deterioration of security in Afghanistan, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday that she would “note and reiterate to anyone who’s a critic that any President has to make difficult choices as commander in chief.”
Psaki told Collins that the Biden administration, “did assess early on, when the President asked for a clear-eyed assessment that there would be impacts, and there would be consequences of making the choice he made,” but acknowledged, as President Biden did during remarks from the East Room Monday, “that this is happened more rapidly than we anticipated here, than anyone anticipated — I think that accounts for members of Congress and people who are on the ground in Afghanistan.”
Pressed in a follow up, Psaki told Collings that the President still has faith in his national security team, with whom he “works in lockstep.”
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Germany evacuates more than 100 people from Afghanistan on second military flight out of Kabul
From CNN’s Claudio Otto in Berlin and Amy Cassidy
A-400M transport aircrafts are seen upon arrival after they evacuated people from Afghanistan at Tashkent International Airport in Uzbekistan on August 17, 2021.
A second German armed forces aircraft carrying 125 people left Kabul for Uzbekistan on Tuesday, with two further flights scheduled for later in the day, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas confirmed in a news conference in Berlin.
“One hundred more Germans are already in the military-secured area of the airport. The airlift will first lead to Tashkent in Uzbekistan and in the next step to Germany with special Lufthansa flights,” he added.
The German foreign minister said some Afghan workers had faced difficulties passing through Taliban security checkpoints to reach Kabul airport for evacuations flights, but noted that the situation on the ground “has stabilized.”
“With the Bundeswehr soldiers who are on the ground, we have organized a lock together with the United States, a gate at the airport, where the persons concerned can come, be received there and from there be taken to the secured area of the airport,” Maas said.
“The situation is much more dangerous because there is no promise of being let through at the relevant Taliban checkpoints,” he added.
Speaking in a later news conference, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer confirmed that the German military will operate three evacuation flights a day from Kabul, noting that a further 180 people are still waiting at the airport to be evacuated Tuesday evening.
The defense minister added that Germany’s ambassador to Afghanistan will travel to Doha to begin talks with the Taliban to secure the safe passage of Afghan workers via the German evacuation program.
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Uganda will temporarily host 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan following US request
From CNN's Bethlehem Feleke and Scott McLean
Uganda will temporarily host 2,000 refugees fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan after granting a request from the United States government, according to the Minister of State for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Esther Anyakun Davina.
The refugees, who will arrive in batches of 500 at a time, are expected to arrive as early as Tuesday, Davina told CNN. With help from the UN Refugee Agency and other government organizations, the hundreds of refugees will be documented and screened before being resettled elsewhere after three months.
Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee host country, and fourth globally, with 1.4 million refugees, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
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Biden will speak again on Afghanistan "in coming days," national security adviser says
From CNN's Kate Sullivan
US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily press briefing on the situation in Afghanistan at the White House in Washington, DC on August 17, 2021.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
President Biden will speak again on the situation in Afghanistan in the coming days, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday.
Biden briefly returned from Camp David on Monday to deliver remarks from the White House and said he stood “squarely behind my decision” to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
The President admitted the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban retaking control happened more quickly than the US government had anticipated, but insisted that ending America’s 20-year war was the correct decision.
Biden returned to Camp David shortly after his speech on Monday.
