Biden administration officials are struggling to respond to stories of charter planes carrying Americans who are trapped in Afghanistan, deepening tensions over the administration’s decision to withdraw from the country before all U.S. citizens were evacuated.
Reports of several charter planes grounded in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif sparked outrage over the weekend when the organizers of private flights spoke out against the State Department for inaction. Dozens of Americans and Afghan citizens are trapped in the city as they await permission from the Taliban for their flights to take off for Doha, Qatar, while State Department officials say they have no way of vetting the people waiting for the planes.
SCHUMER CLAIMS ‘ALL AMERICANS’ WHO WANTED TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN GOT OUT
Marine LeGree, executive director of nonprofit group Ascend that does leadership training for Afghan girls through athletics, said her group organized two charter flights in Mazar-e-Sharif to evacuate Afghan girls and others who worked with the organization. Those flights, according to LeGree, were also supposed to ferry 19 Americans to safety, and four additional flights were aiming to take off from the airport, bringing the total number of charter flights waiting for clearance to six.
“It’s just unconscionable,” LeGree told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve got levers we can pull, and why aren’t we pulling them? I can’t understand that. We’re just accepting that the Taliban is in charge now of planes full of humanitarian [workers] and women. Come on.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the State Department has little visibility into the situation because it no longer has diplomatic personnel in Afghanistan.
“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostagelike situation in Mazar-e-Sharif,” Blinken said during an appearance in Doha. “So, we have to work through the different requirements, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also fielded questions about the charter flights on Tuesday and attributed the delays to a lack of information about everyone who will be on the flights.
“We don’t have an assessment of the manifest,” she told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We’re not on the ground, right? … While we are in touch with American citizens directly, beyond that, we don’t have an assessment of manifests, what security protocols and measures are taken. So, there is a range of issues that we’re working through.”
LeGree disputed the claim from the Biden administration that a lack of information about the flight manifests has prevented the flights from taking off. She said the State Department delayed her two flights from leaving for several days while they verified the manifests; by the time that process was completed, the Taliban had taken control of the situation, she said.
“What Blinken said today was pretty crushing to me because I had hoped that he would see this situation is untenable and we have to get our people out,” LeGree said.
Congressional aides have been told that consular services for those trapped in Afghanistan are available from Doha now that diplomatic staff have left Kabul, but lawmakers and aides have complained of receiving little clarity from the Biden administration about how to help those still stuck in the country.
While the State Department on Tuesday touted the rescue of four Americans through what officials described as an “overland” route, it is unclear how the U.S. plans to retrieve the Americans left behind when troops withdrew on Aug. 31.
Biden administration officials had faced pressure to reveal how many Americans remained stranded in Afghanistan after forces left Kabul last week.
While Blinken said on Tuesday that that number was roughly 100, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said on Sunday that he was given a number in a classified setting that was as high as several hundred.
Of the charter flights, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, also claimed that the Taliban are “holding them hostage right now for demands.”
Blinken said one issue with the flights trapped in Mazar-e-Sharif is that people without proper documentation have been grouped in with those who do have their paperwork, complicating the process for getting the flights approved for takeoff by the Taliban.
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But LeGree said she sent her girls to Mazar-e-Sharif because the State Department hadn’t made those requirements clear. Now, many of them are unable to return home to retrieve any lost documents and are trapped in limbo while they wait for clearance for the flights.
“I haven’t fully given up hope on my own government yet to do the right thing,” LeGree said.
“You can get this one right, this is one thing.”
