WASHINGTON: The US Military is considering “creative ways” to make Americans and others to Kabul Airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid various security threats, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, and the Pentagon on Sunday ordered six US commercial airlines to help Evakuees from the site while outside Afghanistan.
Austin told ABC “this week” that as a deadline for August 9 President Joe Biden to end the evacuation operation approach, he would recommend whether to give more time.
Tens of thousands of Americans and others have not flown out of the country.
Interviews aired on Sunday but were affixed to Saturday as other US officials quoting an increase in concerns about security threats at Kabul Airport from militants affiliated with Islamic State groups.
The US Embassy issued a security warning on Saturday to citizens not to travel to the airport without individual instructions from US government representatives.
Officials refused to provide more specific about the threat but described it as significant.
“We will try our best to get everyone, every American citizen who wants to come out, come out,” said Austin in an interview.
“And we have – we continue to see various ways to – in creative ways – to reach out and contact American citizens and help them enter the airport.” He then said this included non-American who qualified for evacuation, including Afghanistan which had submitted a special imigrant visa application.
Austin noted that the US military on Thursday had used a helicopter to move 169 Americans to the airport from the nearest hotel land in the capital.
That is the only example announced from US forces that exceed the airport to get refugees, which are often blocked by chaos, violence and crowd at the employment gate.
The main problem in evacuation operations is processing refugees once they reach other countries in the region and in Europe.
Waystation meanwhile, including in Qatar, Bahrain and Germany, sometimes reaching capacity.
In an effort to relieve it, and to free the military aircraft for the mission of Kabul, the Pentagon on Sunday activated the civilian spare air fleet.
The Defense Department said 18 aircraft from six commercial airlines would be directed at Evakary Ferries from temporarily Waystation.
The airline will not fly to Afghanistan.
According to the Pentagon, activation involved three aircraft each from the American airline, ATLAS water, delta air ducts and Omni air; two of Hawaii Airlines; and four of the United Airlines.
This is the first time the civil service reserve system has been activated since 2003, when used for Iraq war.
Commercial airlines will maintain their civil status but flights will be controlled by the order of military air mobility.
Austin said he could not predict how long it would bring the United States to complete the evacuation, which began on August 14.
“In what way we can achieve forward, you can’t – we can’t – we can’t – we can’t place a, you know, specific numbers about what we can do, but I will only tell you that we are Will try to exceed expectations, and do as much as we can, and take care of as we can, as long as we can, “he said.