US orders American airlines to aid evacuation from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan
- Eighteen civilian craft, from American Airlines, Atlas, Delta, Omni, Hawaiian and United, will aid military cargo transports involved in the evacuation
- The situation was further complicated on Saturday when the US government warned citizens to stay away from Kabul airport because of ‘security threats’
Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin activated the rarely used Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) to aid the onward movement of people arriving at US bases in the Middle East, the Pentagon said.
“We’re going to try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” Austin said in an ABC interview on the evacuation mission, adding that the same applied to America’s Afghan allies.
Eighteen civilian craft, from American Airlines, Atlas, Delta, Omni, Hawaiian and United, will aid dozens of military cargo transports involved in the evacuation, the statement said.
Rather than going in and out of Kabul, the planes will transport people from US bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to European countries and, for many, onward to the United States.