Washington: US President Joe Biden said on Friday that the ongoing campaign to evacuate American citizens and Afghans who have supported them over the past 20 years from Afghanistan is the first air evacuation in history. It has been the toughest campaign and it is also one of the biggest. Biden said the United States had evacuated more than 18,000 people from Afghanistan since July and about 13,000 since the military began airlifting on August 14.
“This evacuation operation is one of the biggest and most difficult in history, and the only country in the world that can demonstrate so much power on the other side of the world, that too,” he told a news conference at the White House. With so much precision, it is America.” He said thousands of other people, including American citizens, permanent residents, and their families, were evacuated by privately chartered planes arranged by the US government.
Biden said that the US has kept Kabul Airport in its possession so that other aircraft, including military aircraft, can take off. “We have about 6,000 soldiers there, the 82nd Airborne is providing security to the runway, the 10th Mountain Division of the Army is guarding the airport and the 24th Marine unit is assisting with the evacuation of civilians,” he said. He told that earlier this week all 204 personnel of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal were evacuated from Afghanistan by US military aircraft.
