Now that U.S. troops have left Afghanistan , remaining Americans who want to leave and the scores of Afghanis at risk because they helped the U. …
Now that U.S. troops have left Afghanistan, remaining Americans who want to leave and the scores of Afghanis at risk because they helped the U.S. mission will have to rely on diplomatic pressure – not American military might – to ensure their safe exit. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged the Biden administration, with the backing of its international allies, would continue reaching out to those Americans left and help them when they decide to leave. «If an American in Afghanistan tells us they want to stay for now, and in a week or a month or a year they reach out and say. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ we will help them leave,» he said in a televised address Monday evening only hours after the last U.S. military plane took off from Kabul, officially ending the country’s longest war. Blinken said fewer than 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan and the actual number is «likely closer to 100.» The secretary said the administration was trying to determine an exact number by poring through manifests and calling and texting those on the lists they have. The challenge is «there are long-time residents of Afghanistan who have American passports and who are trying to determine whether or not they wanted to leave,» he said.
