The Pentagon says that some Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan were unable to make it to the Kabul airport to board U.S. evacuation flights before the complete evacuation of U.S. forces.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters that the U.S. believes it was able to evacuate the “vast majority” of Americans in the country who wanted to leave, but that it was aware of some who were couldn’t depart.
McKenzie says that in the final American flights out of Afghanistan, “We were not able to bring any Americans out.” The last American civilians were evacuated about 12 hours before U.S. forces left.
McKenzie says the effort to bring out Americans will now fall on diplomatic channels.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden pledged that the U.S. would remain in Afghanistan until it was able to get all of its citizens out of the country. “If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out,” he told ABC News.
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