Washington: The Department of Defense supports the ongoing efforts of US military veterans to help evacuate the risk of Afghanistan from the country, a spokesman for the Pentagon John Kirby said Monday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “shared the same concern that so many veteran groups and individual veterans for our Afghan allies were still there and still wanted to leave the country,” Kirby told reporters.
“You have heard it say many times that we believe we have sacred obligations to those who help us for the past 20 years,” said the spokesman.
“Nothing changed about it so he shared their worries and he welcomed their input.” A number of former members of the US military placed in Afghanistan remain in touch with the Afghan forces they gave together with or with their Afghan translator, and have expressed concern about their fate now that the Taliban had recaptured power.
Some US military veterans launched a personal initiative to help their former Afghan co-workers escape from the country, sneaking into Kabul airport for evacuation flights.
A group called “Pineapple Express” claimed to have helped with the evacuation of 630 Afghanistan and reportedly continued its efforts to make people out of the country.
Kirby said there was no current US military role in this effort.
“It does not involve active military components,” he said, “only the Department of Defense that helps the facilitator, the organizers make connections.” Pentagon spokesman also said that flights of Afghans to the United States from the third country for resettlement would be paused for at least one week after several cases of measles were diagnosed between refugees.
“There are five cases of diagnosing measles among newcomers so far,” said Kirby.
The United States and its allies fly more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan in one of the biggest airlift in history.