(NEW YORK) — The Taliban’s swift move to control Afghanistan has plunged the country into chaos with many fearing for their lives and trying to find any means to escape.
ABC News obtained audio recordings from English-speaking Afghans, including Afghan Air Force pilots, translators and teachers, still trapped inside Afghanistan. They’re pleading to get out and looking to the United States for help. Several Afghans who had worked with the U.S. military said they would be killed if the Taliban found them. They said they felt abandoned by the Americans.
All of them were given pseudonyms below due to concerns for their safety. The recordings were obtained from human rights attorney Kim Motley.
“Why have the American soldiers forgotten about us after everything we did? The sacrifices we did, why are they leaving us behind?” said Abdul, who worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military, and recorded the audio on Aug. 17. “I don’t want to be killed by the Taliban. They are going to cut our heads off if they find my location. Please help.”
“The Taliban is trying to find us and they [are] searching for us,” said Khalil, who had worked with U.S. special forces, and recorded the audio on Aug. 18. “They told me that anywhere I should go, they will find me and kill me. I asked the Americans, ‘Please help us.’”
Idriss, an Afghan pilot, said in a recording from Aug. 18 that he worked for U.S. special forces and that he and his family had been stuck in their home for three days, terrified that the Taliban was hunting them.
“We are very scared, and the Taliban are looking for us 24/7. … This is the time the U.S. should help Afghan pilots, get them out of the country to a safe place. We don’t care where that safe place [is], we need to move. Our family is in danger. We are at high risk now. We can’t live like this for the rest of our lives, being scared and [escaping the] Taliban,” Idriss said. “We have no safe place in Afghanistan.”
There’s an entire generation of Afghans who didn’t grow up under Taliban rule, but that all has changed in a matter of weeks. Now in power, new images from the capital city of Kabul showed Taliban fighters carrying out armed patrols where Afghan men and women protested.
The previous Taliban regime enforced severe restrictions on women, who were largely confined to their homes. They also held public executions and banned television and music prior to the U.S.-led military invasion in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“My wife was beaten by the Taliban,” Abdul said. “My kids, they are young kids … they were all beaten by the Taliban. The Taliban have no mercy on anybody. So we are really left behind. We really need immediate evacuation from here.”
People desperate to escape have continued to fill Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul as the U.S. military races to evacuate people out of the country. Ali, an English teacher who claimed to have ties to the U.S., said she was in “huge danger” in a recording from Aug. 19.
“I’m so afraid to be out in that area of the airport,” Ali said. “It is insane. There are people holding their American passports, there are people that work with the Americans and they aren’t letting anyone in. … There is chaos everywhere. At least for the people who have citizenship, please let them in. I don’t understand.”
Laila, another teacher who said she was close to the airport, described in recordings made within the last week a “big mob” scene that included armed Taliban fighters and looters attacking citizens.
“They are coming up from everywhere,” she said. “We stay here for one more hour, there is going to be a massacre. I’m telling you there is going to be a massacre. Everyone will be killed here, I’m telling you, because I see a lot of armed people here. They are attacking us from every possible corner.”
President Joe Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday that his administration is sticking by its decision to withdraw troops from the country. However, Biden said troops might stay beyond the original Aug. 31 date if it takes longer to get all of the Americans out of the country.
For some Afghans still waiting for help inside the country, many believe that they’ll have to remain in hiding until they could find a way out.
“I don’t know how much more we can handle this situation, I have already lost my mind,” said Abdul. “The situation is not good. They can find me anytime.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. diplomats at the embassy in Kabul warned in a classified memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the department’s leadership last month that the Afghan government was at risk of collapse as the Taliban offensive swept across the country, a source familiar with the memo confirmed to ABC News.
The dissent cable, as such memos are called at the agency, was sent on July 13 and was immediately brought to Blinken’s attention, the source said.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price declined to comment on the cable, saying dissent cables are “strictly between the Department’s leadership and the authors of the dissent messages,” but said Blinken reads and responds to each and values their use.
It’s another example of how U.S. officials had been warning senior Biden administration officials about the risks of the president’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, although even diplomats on the ground had no idea the collapse could come so quickly.
The cable, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, called on the Biden administration to begin an airlift operation immediately for Afghans who helped the U.S., according to the source.
It also urged the U.S. government to use stronger language to condemn the Taliban’s atrocities as they swept across the country and gained control of provinces, per the source — something the embassy, its top diplomat Ambassador Ross Wilson and eventually the department started doing around that time.
Blinken read the cable and responded to it, according to the source, who said the “thoughts of the drafters reflected much of the thinking at the department.” The day after the cable was sent, the administration announced Operation Allies Refuge to begin relocating Afghans who assisted the U.S. military and diplomatic missions and their families to the U.S.
But that operation did not begin until late July, and before Kabul fell on Sunday, it had only brought under 2,000 Afghans to the U.S. — those who had been approved for special immigrant visas and already undergone security vetting. In total, some 20,000 Afghans who worked for the U.S. have applied for these visas, according to the State Department, for themselves and tens of thousands more family members.
The administration has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers of both parties and veterans groups, among others, for not beginning that operation sooner, moving Afghans to the U.S. quickly enough or securing agreements with safe countries to host Afghans who have not yet passed security vetting.
“There was a concern that if we moved too quickly that it would undermine the confidence of the Afghan government and it would lead to a collapse even faster,” Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told ABC News Wednesday.
“I appreciate that in hindsight people are saying, ‘Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?'” she added. “The focus now today is getting all those SIVs out.”
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — In Louisiana, the COVID-19 crisis is leaving hospitals teetering on the edge of collapse.
The state currently has the nation’s highest case rate, and hospitalization levels — more than 3,000 at last count — are stretching the health system to a breaking point with patients overwhelming intensive care units and staffing in short supply.
“Our volume, over the past couple of weeks, has been outrageously high,” Dr. Jon Michael Cuba, service line chairman for emergency medicine at Ochsner Health in Baton Rouge, told ABC News. “There has been a ton, a ton of COVID. We are built to deal with this, but with this surge, there is a lack of nurses, a lack of beds and it’s hard to get enough physicians to see the onslaught of patients that are coming in.”
In the last month alone, hospital admissions have surged by more than 340%, amidst a steady rise in daily cases over the last seven weeks.
The situation in Louisiana, driven by the highly infectious delta variant, is mirrored in other Southern states where vaccination rates are relatively low.
In Florida, more patients are currently hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic, and in Alabama, there no remaining ICU beds available statewide.
In Louisiana, less than 39% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated. Nearly all of those currently hospitalized with COVID-9 in the state — 91% — are unvaccinated, according to state data.
“We’re seeing people come in, they’re getting sicker more quickly,” Dr. Ryan Richard, a pulmonary and critical care physician with the Baton Rouge General Hospital told ABC News, adding that “the vast majority of people are unvaccinated.”
Hospitals in crisis mode
Hospitals across the state are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing pandemic. There is simply not enough staff to deal with the influx of COVID-19 patients, in addition to the non-COVID-19 patients, doctors said, thus greatly straining the healthcare system
“We are seeing crazy outrageous numbers of patients,” Cuba explained.
At the beginning of July, there were 10 COVID-19 patients receiving care at Baton Rouge General Hospital. As of Wednesday, there were more than 200 COVID-19 patients.
The hospital is now at a breaking point, Richard said. “We do have people calling in to try to get to this hospital that we’re unable to accept,” he said, adding that they have had to send patients to other facilities because they simply do not have the means to care for them. “That’s hard on us, because we want to take everybody that we possibly can and do everything we can, but we don’t have the right means. It’s very frustrating.”
With so many patients needing care, and critical care at that, hospitals have been forced to create makeshift ICUs.
Baton Rouge General opened its eighth COVID-19 ward this week, including one unit in the hospital’s burn unit. Other hospitals in the state have been transforming endoscopy suites, or other medical rooms into untraditional places to care for patients.
In addition, the wait time in the emergency rooms is getting increasingly longer, with critically ill patients forced to stand by for care that was once immediate.
“We are getting crushed in our emergency rooms, our hospitals are filled to the brim,” said Cuba. “If somebody is coming in today with a heart attack, there is a wait. Something we aren’t accustomed to, or comfortable with, but it’s just overwhelming and a cold hard fact of the capacity in the hospitals are starting to get to the bursting point.”
Patients getting younger, and sicker
With more than 80% of Americans 65 and older fully vaccinated, the burden of disease has shifted largely to younger Americans. As of Aug. 7, Americans between the ages of 18-49 make up more than 40% of the patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, across the country.
Many of the patients who are coming in tend to be younger and sicker, Dr. Abdul Khan, pulmonary critical care physician in the COVID ICU at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans noted. He recalled a 40-year-old father, who before being placed on a ventilator, told staff that he was the primary caretaker of a 10 year-old son.
There has also been a staggering increase in younger patients being hospitalized.
“The other thing that we didn’t see in the beginning, is parents visiting their kids,” Khan explained. “The thought of having to visit my kids in the hospital is mind numbing. And that’s what we are seeing.”
Even more concerning, added Khan, is the dreadful reality that “we are having to have conversations with people’s parents about end of life care and things like that. These aren’t kids, but they are 20 years old and 30 years old, and the people that are at their bedsides are their parents.”
One of the patients at Baton Rouge General is 39-year-old disaster relief worker Jessica Cooper, of Baton Rouge, who has been hospitalized with the virus for over 12 days. Cooper, who was unvaccinated, told ABC News, she had wanted to wait for the shot until after she completed an upcoming surgery.
Cooper told ABC News that the infection had depleted her, with every breath a battle. At her worst, she had even written out a goodbye text to her 11-year-old daughter, in case she did not make it out of the hospital.
“I had prayed, made my peace with God. And started typing a text message to her, that way if something happened, and I didn’t make it, she knew I loved her,” Cooper said, adding that this virus is “ageless, it’s colorless — what you can do to protect yourself, it’s not even about you, it’s to protect others.”
Richard noted that people who are coming into the hospital appear to be getting sicker, more quickly, and while in the first three waves of COVID-19, the medical staff felt that it could predict, to some degree, who would get sick, and which people were most vulnerable to the disease, it is no longer the case.
“We’re fooled everyday for what we thought and we’re seeing a lot of young people with no medical problems that were significant or it,” he said. “I thought we had kind of turned the corner and on our way out of this thing… but the delta has truly thrown us a curveball.”
Hospital workers overworked and overwhelmed
The nationwide shortage of nurses has also left frontline workers stretching their teams responsibilities, in an effort to meet all patients’ needs.
“The amount of nurses is never enough,” said Khan. “We are redeploying physicians. That’s how sick the patients are, and how fast they are coming in. If we have 5, 10, 15 extra nurses, there will be a job for them. That’s how many people are coming to the hospital.”
Teams are also ultimately facing the burden of the physical and emotional toll yet another wave has placed on the staff.
“We are already stressed in our job with the extra hours covering the surge, and then when you see your patients, and worried about what’s in the lobby, worried about who is in the ambulance, am I going to be able to get this heart attack out to the right place, will I find a place for the patient to land? I worry a lot about our teams,” Cuba concluded.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government’s collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
As the crisis intensifies, images from Kabul Thursday show Taliban fighters forcefully patrolling streets where Afghan men and women were protesting. Meanwhile, Pentagon officials said their focus remains on maintaining the airport perimeter and increasing the number evacuees out of Kabul.
President Joe Biden returned to Washington from Camp David on Wednesday and sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Pentagon said that 6,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the country’s capital as the military races to evacuate people. Despite criticism, the Biden administration is sticking by its decision to withdraw troops from the country, though Biden told Stephanopoulos troops might stay beyond the original Aug. 31 date if it takes longer to get all Americans out of the country.
Here are some key developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 20, 1:25 am
US evacuated about 3,000 people from Kabul on Thursday
The U.S. evacuated approximately 3,000 people from the airport in Kabul on Thursday as thousands clamor to get out of the country in the wake of the Taliban taking over the government.
The White House confirmed the latest number of evacuees early Friday, among them nearly 350 U.S. citizens. The others on the 12 C-17 flights were family members of U.S. citizens, special immigration visa applicants and their families and vulnerable Afghans, a White House official said.
The official said 9,000 people have been evacuated since Aug. 14 and 14,000 since the end of July.
Not included in those totals were 11 charter flights facilitated by the U.S. military, the official said.
President Joe Biden is scheduled to discuss the evacuations from Afghanistan in an address Friday afternoon.
Aug 19, 8:13 pm
Consular surge will only be as high as 40 people total: Sources
The State Department announced earlier this week that it is “surging” staff to the international airport in Kabul to assist with the massive efforts to evacuate as many as 15,000 U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
But the total number of consular officials who will help process people will only be as high as 40 people in total, according to two sources familiar with the plans — raising questions about whether that is enough staff to process the tens of thousands left to evacuate.
The State Department declined to confirm how many consular officials would be based at Kabul airport, but referred questions to spokesperson Ned Price’s comments earlier on Thursday.
“We’re always going to be evaluating what we could be doing differently, what we could be doing more effectively. If it turns out that we need additional consular capacity in Kabul, we won’t hesitate to do that, but right now we are confident that … with the additional reinforcements, we’ll have what we need,” he told reporters.
In comparison, there are more than 5,200 U.S. troops on the ground, securing the airport and evacuating Americans and Afghans on military cargo aircraft. The military is able to airlift between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day, Gen. Hank Taylor told reporters Thursday, but they have not had that many evacuees ready to go.
Crowds are unable to access the airport, blocked by massive congestion and Taliban fighters beating back crowds. U.S. forces have also deployed tear gas and fired into the air to disperse crowds. Over the last 24 hours, Taylor said, only 2,000 passengers were taken out.
(NEW YORK) — Rhashonna Cosby’s two children fared very differently during their months of remote learning. Her son thrived working independently, going on to graduate from high school in the spring of 2020. Her 17-year-old daughter, meanwhile, struggled academically without face-to-face instruction, before transferring this past spring to a school where she could go on-site a few days each week.
“She definitely needs in-person,” Cosby, of Linden, New Jersey, told ABC News. “That’s ideal for her because she doesn’t get distracted. She can focus.”
As students head back for a third school year impacted by the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to complicate the education landscape and the impact of remote learning has yet to be fully assessed. As achievement gaps have emerged, many districts are planning to return fully in person learning in hopes of restoring traditional learning, even as safety concerns mount around the highly contagious delta variant.
But remote learning will remain a part of students’ lives for the foreseeable future, experts say, with tens of thousands of students in quarantine just weeks into the school year for some. How schools approach remote learning is varied: While some view it as a Zoom extension of the classroom, others are taking novel and holistic approaches to try to improve the quality of instruction.
For now, in-person learning is the only option for students like Cosby’s daughter, a rising senior, as New Jersey’s governor was among several leaders to require full-time, in-person K-12 instruction this school year. Other large school districts, like New York City, are starting the year without a remote option.
In recent days, however, the New Jersey state education department has issued guidance that “strongly encouraged” schools to provide remote instruction for students during quarantine, NorthJersey.com reported.
In Philadelphia, Maritza Guridy had the option of a fully remote school, though she decided to have her four children in person “as long as it’s safe,” she told ABC News. Once they were able to return to the classroom last school year, her children did better with face-to-face instruction, she said. While working as the secretary for her children’s school, Guridy heard from many parents struggling with remote learning last year.
“I got many phone calls with families telling me that they had to choose between working or being able to help their child, so there are children that didn’t even log on the entire school year, as a result, because their families could not afford to be at home,” said Guridy, who now works as the Northeast Regional Organizer for the education advocacy group National Parents Union. “It was just so many things that I personally experienced, saw, heard about from parents calling the school. It was a lot.”
Achievement gap in math and English
While some students may do well learning remotely, others have fallen disproportionately behind.
A spring report by the think tank Rand Corp. found that fully remote students learned less in mathematics and English language arts and were more likely to be absent than those learning in person. In a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly 40% of parents of school-age children said their child fell behind academically during the pandemic — with Hispanic parents and households with incomes less than $40,000 a year most likely to report that.
Even for those opting for in-person classes, virtual learning will be inevitable this school year, especially in areas of low vaccination, Daniel Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told ABC News.
Case in point: Just a week into the school year, over 10,000 students and staff in one Florida school district were isolating or quarantining due to COVID-19 cases or exposure.
And over 20,000 students in Mississippi, the state with the lowest vaccination rate, were in quarantine after the first week of school.
“Remote learning is not going to disappear,” Domenech said. “It’s going to continue as a major supplement to help us catch up with the learning loss.”
Deliberate about who goes remote
Amid rising worries over the delta variant, Kenny Rodrequez, the superintendent of the Grandview C-4 School District in Grandview, Missouri, has seen a growing interest in remote learning ahead of the first day of school on Aug. 23 — from about 5% of the district’s roughly 4,000 students last month to around 10 to 12%, he told ABC News last week.
“Certainly the variant has many people very concerned,” he said, though the district is encouraging in-person learning if possible.
“We’re trying to do it a little bit more deliberately this time, a little bit more in the student’s best educational interests,” he said. “If your kid was virtual last year and they were not successful, we’re going to have a real, personal conversation with you about, maybe this is not in their best interest.”
For parents concerned about safety, the district has been communicating about its COVID-19 protocols, such as requiring students and staff to wear masks regardless of vaccination status, the superintendent said.
As for remote instruction, the district took a few more lessons to heart. For one, teaching both in-person and remote at the same time was too challenging, so it is looking to have educators who just focus on remote learning. Additionally, teaching kindergarten in particular was too difficult via a screen, so the grade will only be in person this school year, Rodrequez said.
Dedicated virtual staff and a targeted student approach have factored into other school districts’ plans. Georgia’s Bibb County School District marked the debut this month of its virtual school, VIP Academy — an investment in remote learning that was in the works pre-pandemic. About 2% of the 21,000-person student body is enrolled in the school, which serves grades 4 through 12, school officials said.
Students had to apply to the school “to make sure that they are a quality candidate to be successful in virtual learning,” Rose Powell, chief information officer for the school district, told ABC News. “It’s not for everyone.”
In the event students attending school in-person in the district aren’t able to show up — such as due to COVID-19 quarantine or isolation, another illness or a family matter — they can shift virtually at their district school. Classrooms are also equipped with audio and video technology, so teachers can record and upload lessons into the district’s learning management system.
“[This] provides our teachers and our students and our parents access like they’ve never had before,” Powell said.
Communication key in unclear environment
One key component during months of pandemic learning has been, simply, communication.
“You cannot communicate enough, because people do not necessarily know what’s going on,” said Rodrequez, who started posting weekly videos online for families. “I think for us, just trying to be as open and honest as possible and communicate everything that’s going on that we know, knowing that sometimes we’re not gonna know what’s gonna happen — some things will change around us and we’ll have to adapt to that as well.”
That captures what many parents are feeling as the school year starts amid high COVID-19 transmission across most of the United States.
Debra Garrett of Troy, New York, is hoping her four children, who are between the ages of 7 and 11, can safely stay in school after they largely learned remotely last year.
“This year was a struggle, but I think a lot of the sacrifices fell on me as a parent, and of course other parents can vouch for that as well,” said Garrett, who left her job working for the state’s retirement system to be home with her children. She also was in school virtually herself, recently graduating with a bachelor’s in health sciences.
Her children did better academically and socially with face-to-face instruction, especially her 10-year-old, she said. After he went back to the classroom a few days a week to receive speech therapy services, he improved so much he currently doesn’t need them this upcoming school year, she said.
As cases continue to rise in her area, though, Garrett is getting more anxious about both the prospects of staying fully in-person once her children go back to their charter school on Aug. 23, and what it means for their safety.
“I’m nervous, but I really want them back in the building,” she said. “I know that they learn better when they’re there. I also need a sense of normalcy.”
(NEW YORK) — As students across the country head back to school, a top priority for many educators and parents is how to help students who have experienced “learning loss” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With kids leaning remotely since early 2020, “learning loss” — or gaps in understanding and skill knowledge that prevent academic progress — has been a natural worry for many parents.
But instead of dwelling on how much students may have fallen behind during their time away from school, some educators are focusing on meeting students where they are rather than focusing on what they’ve “lost.”
“Sometimes the phrase ‘learning loss’ doesn’t value and uphold all of the hard work that teachers, students and families did over the last year and a half to really try to stay the course and really keep their students learning,” Juliana Urtubey, the Council of Chief State School Officers’ 2021 national teacher of the year, told Good Morning America.
“One of the things that I like to tell families and my students is that we’re going to be OK. We’re going to work really hard to catch all the kids up,” Urtubey said. “But what we want to focus on is the future and how to meet all the needs of all of our students instead of working, fixating on the pressure of catching up.”
Urtubey, who is a special education teacher at Kermit Booker Elementary School in Las Vegas, said that even if the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t exist, teachers still assess where students stand academically each year. But if learning loss is the main focus this school year, Urtubey said it could put a lot of pressure on students.
“I think that one of the biggest things we can do is really be critical about how we think about this concept and push back on the idea that our students are going to have to be running the whole year to catch up,” said Urtubey.
Urtubey said that in-person learning will provide a support system for students as they return to school and teachers will meet their needs to help them stay engaged and help them get to where they need to be academically.
“We’re going to work really hard to make sure all of our students have the foundational knowledge they need to be able to apply critical thinking,” Urtubey added. “Each student benefits and thrives in different ways, which is why it’s so important for us to have community within our learning spaces no matter what grade you’re in. Students do better when they know that they’re part of a community and that there’s lots of support for them.”
Ahead of the upcoming school year, Urtubey shared some advice for parents to help their kids feel supported as they transition back to in-person learning.
Co-write a letter with your child to the teacher
Urtubey said co-writing a letter with your child to their teacher is a good way for teachers to get to know students, but also a good way for students to introduce themselves to their teacher. Students can talk about anything from their family to their favorite activities. It can also include what they struggle with in school or what they’re excited to learn. Parents can also include their concerns in the letter.
“As a teacher, I loved getting these letters at the beginning of the year,” Urtubey said. “They made me feel like I already knew the child and I already had a first step in terms of building this kind of trust with families.”
Do activities that are both academic and of interest to your child
If your child expresses an interest in certain subjects like art or reading, Urtubey said it’s good to push them to explore the topics more. For example, if a child is interested in space, Urtubey said a trip to the library can help get your child reading books about space.
“You’re carving out time at home for them to read, so that learning is enjoyable, so that learning is self-guided and self-motivated and that the child has some kind of way to share the learning at home,” Urtubey said. “I think that especially during this last year, we have to make sure that all students feel joy in what they’re learning.”
Visit school before the year begins
For big transition years, like kindergarten or the start of middle school, one way to help prepare students for the upcoming year is to visit the school before the year begins. That way students know where they’re having lunch, where their classroom is, who their teacher is and more.
“A lot of schools will already schedule this,” said Urtubey. “I know that this is really helpful in reducing stress before the first days of school.”
Help students practice introductory questions
Urtubey said when she taught fifth grade students, one way to help them prepare for middle school was spend time with them on things like switching classes or practicing opening a locker. Another way they prepared for the school year was to practice social skills to make new friends.
Urtubey suggested practicing different conversations for different scenarios with your student to help them take the stress or anxiety out of forming friendships or meeting new people.
Encourage deeper conversations about school
At the end of each day, Urtubey suggested asking your child questions beyond “How was your day?” since that doesn’t necessarily start a conversation with them about what happened during school.
Instead, Urtubey suggested questions such as, “Tell me about a time that you felt really happy today,” “Tell me about a time you felt challenged today,” or “Tell me a bit about what you learned today,” will help foster more discussions about what they’re feeling.
(COLLEGE GROVE, Tenn.) — Amid a heated debate playing out in school districts across the country over whether students should be required to wear face masks, a Tennessee dad is going viral for an impassioned speech in which he explained why he is having his 5-year-old daughter wear a mask.
“She went to school and was one of just a few kids in her class wearing a mask, which made her ask why she had to. My answer was because we want to take care of other people,” Justin Kanew, of College Grove, Tennessee, said during a school board meeting Monday night. “She’s 5 years old but she understood that concept, and it’s disappointing that more adults around here can’t seem to grasp it.”
Kanew, also the dad of a 2-year-old son, spoke before the Williamson County Board of Education, which last week, just before the start of school, approved a temporary mask requirement for elementary school students, staff and visitors until Sept. 21, according to the school district’s website.
The school board’s ruling prompted an outcry from groups who opposed the mask requirement. Videos shared on social media showed people wearing masks heckled and confronted as they left the special session where the board ruled on masks.
Kanew said he had not planned to speak at Monday’s meeting, which he attended to cover for his website, TN Holler, but decided to do so when he saw so many people speaking out against masks in schools.
“It just seemed important for the school board to hear that there are other voices out there,” Kanew told “Good Morning America.” “I just hope people will really continue to make their voices heard, especially in counties like ours where we can sometimes be drowned out by the other side of this discussion.”
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics , an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, have called for schools to enforce universal masking mandates as the United States experiences a COVID-19 surge, including among children, brought on by the delta variant and low vaccination rates.
Some governors in states like Florida and Texas have banned mask mandates and threatened to remove local school officials who break state rules and require masks for students. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee this week signed an executive order requiring schools to allow parents to opt their children out of a school mask mandate.
Kanew said his daughter told him she is one of just a few students in her class to wear a mask, but will continue to wear one regardless.
“To her credit, she’s totally seemed to understand that concept of helping other people and we’ve reiterated that to her over and over again,” he said. “We just tell her that we want to keep everybody safe and the more people that wear masks, the safer everybody can be and the sooner we can get back to not wearing masks.”
“She fully understands that and I wish more people would stop making this political and start making it more about taking care of each other,” Kanew added. “At the end of the day, we should be doing everything we possibly can to keep our kids in school and to get back to some sense of normal, and if masks are a path to that, that seems like a small price to pay.”
Kanew said his speech before the school board was met with silence in-person, but that he has received thousands of supportive comments on social media and has also been thanked in-person by members of his local community.
“[A school board member] said at the meeting that she’d gotten over 1,000 emails about this issue and over 700 of them were in favor of a mask mandate, so she reminded the people in the room that they may be a majority in that room but and doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of the greater situation,” he said. “You can’t judge based on who shows up to kick and scream.”
In his speech, Kanew also provided a counterpoint to parents claiming on behalf of their kids a religious exemption from wearing a mask.
“I asked a pastor friend of mine and he was very clear that there was no actual biblical justification for using the Bible to get out of a mask mandate passed by a majority of this elected board,” he said. “But thousands are doing it anyway, calling it a religious exemption, which is frankly just sad. Avoiding masks is not in the Bible, but taking care of others is.
Kanew told “GMA” that although he had not planned on speaking out publicly amid the mask debate, he is glad he did and hopes his example encourages others to do the same.
“I think it’s important to put a face on some of these disagreements whenever possible and actually see the humanity in each other,” he said. “It’s easy to hide behind our social media screens and keyboard and I think it’s good to get out and talk with each other. It doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with everybody, but at least you can be reminded that we’re all trying to do what we think is right.”
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government’s collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
As the crisis intensifies, with images from Kabul showing Afghans storming the airport tarmac and climbing onto military planes after the U.S. assumed control of the airport, President Joe Biden briefly left Camp David to address the nation from the White House on Monday.
Biden returned to Washington on Wednesday and sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Pentagon said that 6,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the country’s capital as the military races to evacuate people from an increasingly chaotic Kabul. Despite criticism, the Biden administration is sticking by its decision to withdraw troops from the country, though he told Stephanopoulos the stay might extend beyond the original Aug. 31 date if it takes longer to get all Americans out of the country.
Here are some key developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 19, 3:58 pm
Pentagon pressed on evacuees’ barriers to airport
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a second press briefing with reporters on Thursday he had not received reports indicating American citizens are being stopped and harassed by the Taliban, but added a caveat.
“That said, we obviously don’t have perfect visibility into what is going on outside the airport, so I can’t say definitively that they aren’t stopping and or harassing people with U.S. passports or visas,” he said.
The State Department on Wednesday directed American and Afghan evacuees to Hamid Karzai International Airport for departure flights but said the U.S. “cannot ensure safe passage” for them to get there.
“We don’t want to see anybody hurt or harassed, period. And in our communications with the Taliban, they have indicated that people with the proper credentials will be allowed through,” Kirby added.
Pressed on additional steps the Defense Department could take, such as escorting consular officials to Taliban checkpoints, Kirby said their focus remains on maintaining the airport perimeter — not expanding operations into Kabul.
“Our presence is designed to maintain the shape, maintain the safety and security of the airport. And that’s what we’re focused on,” he said. “We are mindful that, that the checkpoints, there can be obstacles to entry for people that need entry and are qualified for entry, so we’re going to continue to work this with our communications with the Taliban in the hopes that we can clear up any stumbling blocks to that process.”
Aug 19, 2:43 pm
State Department update on tens of thousands trying to evacuate
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing on Thursday that the State Department has deployed more consular officers to the airport in Kabul to help speed evacuations and that there are 6,000 people at the airport “right now” who have been fully processed and will soon board planes.
“We’re aware of congestion around the airport. We are working closely with the Department of Defense to facilitate safe and orderly access for consular processing on the airport compound,” Price said.
Pressed on problems faced by those Afghans the State Department has already directed to come to the airport, Price downplayed the disorder “at this hour” and said the agency is doing “everything we can.”
“I’m seeing the same reports on Twitter that you are, and every report of someone unable, for whatever reason, to reach the airport, is something we take very seriously,” he said. “My understanding is that things are moving quite efficiently at this hour at the airport now, but every report we see of someone unable to reach the airport is of concern.”
Price also said the State Department is offering evacuation flights for “vulnerable Afghans” — such as women activists who may not be Special Immigrant Visa holders but who fear their lives are at risk under Taliban control.
“We’re offering an airlift operation for American citizens, for locally employed staff members, for SIVs, for vulnerable Afghans,” he said.
Aug 19, 2:09 pm
Senators to receive briefing on Friday
All Senators will receive an unclassified virtual briefing on Afghanistan on Friday at 3:15 p.m., a Senate official told ABC News, as a bipartisan group of senators urges Biden to do more to evacuate Afghan allies.
Separately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has requested three briefings on Afghanistan in the coming days, a source familiar told ABC News, including an unclassified telephone briefing Friday for all members, a classified in-person briefing on Tuesday for all members and a “Gang of Eight” briefing.
Top Republican Leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have also called on the Biden administration for a classified briefing with the “Gang of Eight,” — which includes the top House and Senate leaders, including the heads of the intel committees in both the House and Senate.
-ABC News’ Trish Turner and Mariam Khan
Aug 19, 1:45 pm
Afghan flags fly as sporadic protests continue in Kabul
Dozens of protesters, including many women, marched throughout Kabul on Thursday, parading the Afghan national flag through the streets on Afghanistan’s Independence Day, days after the president fled the country and the Taliban seized control.
Taliban fighters have fired warning shots into the air to disperse the protests.
The national flag is now evolving into a symbol of both identity and resistance against the Taliban, who have a white flag, which has been displayed in towns across the country and at the Taliban’s first press conference earlier this week.
While Thursday’s protests aren’t mass in scale, they underline the challenges the Taliban face as they attempt to rule after Afghans have exercised new rights over the last 20 years.
There were also protests in several provinces on Wednesday, including in the eastern province of Jalalabad, where the Taliban flag was replaced with the Afghan national flag in a public square.
-ABC News’ Guy Daives and Sohel Uddin
Aug 19, 12:58 pm
Biden, Harris meet with national security team
As the U.S. continues its evacuation efforts from Kabul, the president and vice president met with members of their national security team on Thursday “to discuss security, diplomatic, and intelligence updates in Afghanistan,” a White House official said in a statement.
The group included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and other top officials.
“They discussed the status of operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), which continues to be secure and operational as a result of DOD’s efforts; our efforts to evacuate U.S. citizens, Embassy personnel, SIV applicants and their families, and vulnerable Afghans as quickly as possible; and that every day we operate troops on the ground are at risk,” the official said.
The statement confirmed the Pentagon’s reporting that it has evacuated 7,000 people since Saturday and 12,000 people from Afghanistan since the end of July.
Aug 19, 12:46 pm
EU foreign affairs chief: Situation is ‘a catastrophe’
The European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs held a virtual session on Afghanistan on Thursday at which the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission Josep Borrell called the situation in Afghanistan “a catastrophe.”
“Since Sunday, we are facing a new painful reality on the ground in Afghanistan,” Borrell said.
“Let me speak clearly and bluntly. This is a catastrophe. This is a catastrophe for the Afghan people, for the West’s values and credibility and for the development of international relations,” he continued.
“Was it foreseeable? Was it preventable? In any case, it’s a nightmare because — you know — even if tonight the first 106 members of our staff of the European Union delegations has landed in Madrid, we cannot take all Afghan people out of the country.”
He said there are still 300 Afghan staffers of the European delegations blocked from reaching the airport and finding seats on some of the EU member states’ flights out of Kabul.
Aug 19, 12:11 pm
Getting evacuees to airport, on flights remains biggest challenge
ABC News’ Luis Martinez pressed Pentagon press secretary John Kirby at a briefing on Thursday on whether there’s been progress getting people access to the airport in Kabul.
While Kirby said the Pentagon is “hopeful” for a more consistent increase in the flow of people in the coming days, he said, “I can’t tell you right as we speak here, Louis, that there’s been some dramatic rise.”
“We’ve got additional consular officers now at the additional gates with additional troops helping the consular officers. And so I think we’re poised to see an increase, but I want to be careful before I make predictions,” he added.
The U.S. has evacuated 7,000 people from Kabul since Saturday but hopes to have the capacity to evacuate 6,000 to 9,000 a day, officials said. In the last 24 hours, 2,000 evacuees were airlifted out as getting evacuees safely to the airport and processing them to be let inside and onto flights remains the greatest hurdle for officials.
“It’s not about the math, it’s about what’s ready to fly, who’s on the airfield, ready to leave a holding area and get on the aircraft, and as those numbers increased, which you’ve seen they have in the last 24-48, the CENTCOM command team will continue to bring in the airflow required to fly out those people,” said Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor.
Kirby went on to list some of the choke points the U.S. is still facing.
“There are lots of factors that go into the throughput, including the situation out in town, including the checkpoints that the Taliban have set up, including processing at the gates where we have set up,” he said. “Weather is a factor, and of course security at the airport is a factor.”
Aug 19, 11:25 am
Pentagon: Overwatch flights not intended as ‘shows of force’
At a briefing on Thursday, Pentagon officials addressed the military’s use of armed F-18 overwatch flights above Kabul, saying the planes are there to ensure “close air support” if needed.
“There had been some reporting out there that we were, you know, flying low passes over the city or some kind of shows of force — that’s not what this is. This is just an added layer of force protection is the prudent and responsible thing to do,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said.
While Kirby said the Taliban has agreed to allow Americans to pass through to the airport, he said there’s “no update” on assurances from the Taliban on allowing safe passage for Afghans. He did indicate that there have been signs of progress in terms of vetting Afghans, which helps to get them through.
“We’ve made it very clear to the Taliban that any attack upon our people or our operations at the airport will be met with a forceful response,” he said. “There’s been no hostile interactions between the Taliban and our forces or American citizens.”
Kirby continued, “Now we have seen reports of the Taliban, harassing — and physically so — some Afghans that were trying to move to the airport. We are in constant communication with them.”
More than 5,200 troops are at the airport in Kabul and multiple gates are now open to “help expedite processing in a safe and orderly manner,” said Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, joint staff deputy director for regional operations.
Aug 19, 10:48 am
Pentagon: 7K evacuated from Kabul since Saturday
Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, joint staff deputy director for regional operations, said from the Pentagon on Thursday that the U.S. has evacuated approximately 7,000 people from Afghanistan since Saturday.
“We’re ready to increase throughput and scheduled aircraft departures accordingly. We intend to maximize each plane’s capacity,” he said. “We’re prioritizing people above all else, and we’re focused on doing this as safely as possible with absolute urgency.”
Taylor said multiple gates into the Hamid Karzai International Airport are now open and that the military has not experienced any security incidents overnight.
“We continue to recognize the inherent danger of operating in this environment, but our service members in Kabul remain agile, professional, in our posture to continue mission and to respond if required.”
Aug 19, 10:28 am
‘Was it all worth it?’ Top Marine general tells Marines, ‘Yes’
With the rapid collapse in Afghanistan leading some veterans of America’s longest war to question whether their service there was worth it, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps Gen. David Berger and Marine Corps. Srgt. Major Troy Black have sent a message to all Marines telling them, “Yes.”
“We both believe – without question – that your service was meaningful, powerful, and important,” they said in a a joint letter to U.S. Marines.
They went on to outline U.S. missions that have kept America safe and protected the liberties of Afghan women and men.
“You never let them, down. You never, ever gave up. You lived with purpose, with intention,” they said.
In a similar vein, the Pentagon issued a press release Wednesday night listing mental health resources for service members and their families.
“You are not alone. Remember that what is happening now does not minimize or negate the experiences of all who served overseas,” the message from the Defense Department said. “Service is never for naught.”
Aug 19, 9:57 am
Protests consume Kabul, Taliban fighters respond with force
Hundreds of people took to the streets of Kabul on Thursday as Afghanistan’s annual Independence Day is met with new Taliban control of the country.
Taliban fighters cracked down on the crowds with batons and fired gunshots into the air as Afghan civilians, women included, flew the Afghanistan national flag in an apparent acts of defiance.
The U.S. military said Wednesday its focus will remain on maintaining the perimeter at the airport, as opposed to sending envoys into Kabul to pick up Americans and Afghan civilians who may have difficulty getting to the airport.
“I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a Pentagon briefing at which officials also said “nothing” could predict the collapse of the Afghanistan government in 11 days
As the race to evacuate as many as 11,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans from the country continues, the State Department on Wednesday sent an email alert to Americans in Afghanistan directing them to go to the airport but adding the U.S. “cannot provide safe passage” there.
After sitting down with an exclusive one-on-one interview with George Stephanopoulos, Biden on Thursday has no public events on his schedule but is meeting with his national security team.
Since Saturday, the U.S. has evacuated nearly 6,000 people, according to the White House — so far, falling short of the Pentagon’s goal of evacuating 6,000 to 9,000 individuals a day.
Aug 19, 8:55 am
Biden doubles down on Afghanistan amid struggling evacuation effort
Amid intense backlash on the handling of the troop withdrawal and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the president argued that the commotion of the past few days was inevitable.
“The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview.
Biden indicated an investigation of the intelligence surrounding the topic would take place, but stopped short of saying that the intelligence was wrong. Biden also denied reports that top military advisers warned against his withdrawal timeline.
Biden’s defense of his administration’s actions come as significant numbers of Americans and Afghan civilian personnel struggle to access the Kabul airport and escape the war-torn nation.
“We’re going to do everything we can to continue to try to deconflict and create passageways for them to get to the airfield. I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul,” Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin said to reporters Wednesday.
Much about the progress on evacuation efforts remains murky. In his interview with ABC News, Biden was certain that Americans in Afghanistan and American military members would be taken out of the country but seemed noncommittal on how many Afghan allies the U.S. would be able to rescue. Another unknown is if evacuations can realistically be completed before the Aug. 31 deadline. Biden offered a caveat that is unlikely to comfort those on the ground pleading to evacuate.
“It depends on where we are and whether we can get — ramp these numbers up to five to 7,000 a day coming out,” Biden said. “If that’s the case, they’ll all be out.”
Aug 18, 9:22 pm
US troops will stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan, even if past Aug. 31 deadline: Biden
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, President Joe Biden said the U.S. is committed to getting every American out of Afghanistan — even if it means potentially extending the mission beyond his Aug. 31 deadline for a total withdrawal.
“We’ve got like 10 to 15,000 Americans in the country right now. Right? And are you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to be out is out?” Stephanopoulos asked Biden.
“Yes,” Biden replied.
The president cautioned that his focus is on completing the mission by Aug. 31, but when pressed by Stephanopoulos, conceded the mission could take longer.
Aug 18, 7:16 pm
Congressional leaders calling for briefings
Top Republican Leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are calling on the Biden administration for a “Gang of Eight” classified briefing on Afghanistan.
The so-called “Gang of Eight” includes the top House and Senate leaders, including the heads of the intel committees in both the House and Senate.
Separately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also requested three briefings on Afghanistan in the coming days, according to a source. They include a briefing by phone Friday for all members, a classified, in-person briefing Tuesday and a similar “Gang of Eight” briefing.
-ABC News’ Mariam Khan
Aug 18, 2:14 pm
State Department alerts Americans it ‘cannot ensure safe passage’ to airport
The State Department has directed American citizens to the airport in Kabul for departing evacuation flights — but with a stark warning.
“The United States government cannot ensure safe passage to the Hamid Karzai International Airport,” the agency said in an alert to American citizens still in Afghanistan.
“The security situation in Kabul continues to change quickly, including at the airport,” the agency added.
As many as 11,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans are still desperately trying to leave the country, ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondent Ian Pannell has reported.
Aug 18, 1:44 pm
Biden, Harris briefed by top Pentagon officials
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed to reporters that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris received a briefing on Afghanistan at the White House on Wednesday.
The White House said the group, which also included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and CIA Director William Burns, discussed “efforts to accelerate evacuations” and “to facilitate safe passage to HKIA [Hamid Karzai International Airport].”
The readout from the White House also said the group discussed “monitoring for any potential terrorist threats in Afghanistan.”
-ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky
Aug 18, 1:30 pm
Senior intel official: Afghan government ‘unraveled even more quickly than we anticipated’
A senior U.S. intelligence official acknowledged to ABC News that the “rapid collapse” of the Afghanistan government “unraveled even more quickly” than U.S. intelligence officials had anticipated.
“We consistently identified the risk of a rapid collapse of the Afghan government. We also grew more pessimistic about the government’s survival as the fighting season progressed. This was less an issue of Afghan military capabilities and more a reflection of Afghan leadership, cohesion and willpower,” the official told ABC News. “That said, the Afghan government unraveled even more quickly than we anticipated.”
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and his family fled Kabul on Sunday as the Taliban moved closer to the presidential palace and then claimed the formation of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
-ABC News’ Cindy Smith
Aug 18, 1:09 pm
Pentagon responds to distressing scenes outside airport in Kabul
Ahead of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley holding a briefing at 3 p.m., Pentagon press secretary John Kirby spoke to reporters on Wednesday about the distressing scenes outside the airport in Kabul.
He said U.S. military officials were aware of reports that Taliban fighters are not letting Afghans through to the airport and that’s one reason the top American commander in Kabul, Adm. Peter Vasely, has reached out to his Taliban counterpart.
Asked what more can be done to ensure safe passage of Afghans to the airport, Kirby said only that the Pentagon is working “very hard” on the issue.
“I don’t have a specific next step for you,” he said. “We are in communication with the Taliban. We want to see this process go more smoothly.”
Kirby also confirmed incidents overnight in which some American troops providing security at the perimeter of the airport fired their weapons in the air as part of “crowd control measures.”
He said the U.S. goal to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 individuals a day can be accomplished “when we’re at full throttle.”
Aug 18, 11:51 am
One Afghan family’s harrowing account of getting to Kabul’s airport
“Khan,” a computer scientist who worked with a U.S. contractor on the mission in Afghanistan and whose name is being withheld to protect his identity, boarded a U.S. military aircraft on Wednesday with his 3-year-old son and wife, who is 35 weeks pregnant, according to his lawyer.
It was their third attempt to reach the Kabul airport after they picked up their Special Immigrant Visas on Saturday, hours before the U.S. embassy shuttered.
The chaos on Sunday kept them away, and on Tuesday, there were too many Taliban fighters to get close to the gates. Khan spent several hours on Wednesday trying to reach multiple gates.
The north gate was mobbed, with U.S. troops firing warning shots into the air or deploying tear gas to disperse the crowds, according to his lawyer, who was on FaceTime with him.
There were hours when it seemed like Khan and his family wouldn’t be able to get through, forcing him to consider trying alone and leaving them behind, his lawyer told ABC News’ Conor Finnegan, but “ultimately, it was his persistence that got them in.”
Once inside the airport, the process was efficient, his lawyer said. Two of her clients and their families were on flights within 30 minutes of being processed and entering the airport.
But the chaos outside is horrific, and Afghans are receiving conflicting correspondence from the U.S. embassy — some being told to shelter in place, others given specific instructions on which gates to proceed to — but that situation changing rapidly too, his lawyer said.
Aug 18, 11:01 am
Taliban seen forcefully patrolling area near Kabul airport
Thousands were still outside the airport in Kabul as the U.S. continues its evacuation efforts Wednesday and the Taliban patrolled the surrounding streets, only allowing foreigners through and occasionally firing warning shots, ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondent Ian Pannell reported.
The Taliban on Tuesday promised an “amnesty” for those who worked with the U.S. government and said it would allow for their safe passage to the airport, but on the ground on Wednesday, members of the Taliban were seen whipping Afghan civilians.
As many as 11,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans still are desperately trying to leave the country. The U.S. said late Tuesday it had evacuated 3,200 people from Afghanistan including all U.S. Embassy personnel except for a core group of diplomats. Officials have said they plan to launch one flight per hour to hopefully evacuate up to 9,000 people each day.
Still, the situation remains tense across Afghanistan, with the international community paying close attention to the Taliban’s every move.
Outside of Kabul, about 90 miles away in the eastern city of Jalalabad, anti-Taliban protesters were met with violence from fighters after replacing the Taliban flag in the city’s main square with the Afghan national flag, The Associated Press reported.
Aug 18, 9:58 am
Former Afghan president in United Arab Emirates on ‘humanitarian grounds’
The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry has confirmed in a statement that former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani is in the United Arab Emirates, days after fleeing his home country.
Ghani and his family left Kabul on Sunday as the Taliban surged closer to the presidential palace. The Taliban ultimately overtook the building and has claimed the formation of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
Aug 18, 8:39 am
Few answers from Biden administration on Afghanistan despite pressure
Days removed from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and after a lengthy news conference with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, there is still little clarity on how conditions degraded so quickly in Afghanistan.
When ABC News Correspondent Stephanie Ramos asked Sullivan about reports that Biden administration officials were informed the Taliban could overwhelm the country, the national security adviser denied seeing it.
“I’m not actually familiar with the intelligence assessments you’re describing,” said Sullivan.
The administration plans to conduct an evaluation of the calamity once evacuations are completed.
“We’ll look at everything that happened, in this entire operation, from start to finish, and the areas of improvement where we can do better,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. “Where we can find holes or weaknesses and plug them as we go forward” that analysis will be shared.
Lawmakers are also putting pressure on the Biden administration for answers. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee penned a letter to Biden demanding withdrawal plan details, plainly accusing the president of not having a concrete plan.
“For months, we have been asking you for a plan on your withdrawal from Afghanistan. You failed to provide us with one and based on the horrific events currently unfolding in Afghanistan, we are confident that we never received your plan because you never had one,” the letter reads. “The security and humanitarian crisis now unfolding in Afghanistan could have been avoided if you had done any planning.”
Aug 18, 7:52 am
Trauma injuries on the rise in Afghanistan, WHO warns
Months of violence in Afghanistan “have taken a heavy toll” on the country’s people and fragile health system, the World Health Organization warned Wednesday.
“As a result of the recent conflict, trauma injuries have increased, requiring scaled up emergency medical and surgical services,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement.
In July, some 13,897 conflict-related trauma cases were received at 70 WHO-supported health facilities in Afghanistan, compared with 4,057 cases during the same time last year, according to the WHO.
In Kabul and other areas where people have fled to seek safety and shelter, field reports indicate rising cases of diarrhea, malnutrition, high blood pressure, COVID-19-like symptoms and reproductive health complications. The country’s hospitals were already facing shortages in essential supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic, Al-Mandhari said.
Attacks on health care infrastructure and staff also remain a major challenge. From January to July, 26 health facilities and 31 health care workers were affected, while 12 workers were killed, according to the WHO.
“Delays and disruptions to health care will increase the risk of disease outbreaks and prevent some of the most vulnerable groups from seeking life-saving health care,” Al-Mandhari said. “There is an immediate need to ensure continuity of health services across the country, with a focus on ensuring women have access to female health workers.”
“The people of Afghanistan need support and solidarity today more than ever,” he added. “The gains of the past 20 years cannot be turned back.”
Aug 18, 7:40 am
ABC to interview Biden Wednesday
Biden will sit down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos one-on-one on Wednesday at the White House for the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The interview will air on ABC’s World News Tonight on Wednesday and Good Morning America on Thursday.
Aug 18, 6:23 am
Taliban delegation meets with former Afghan president in Doha
A high-level Taliban delegation has met with Afghanistan’s former president, Hamid Karzai, and the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, in Qatar’s capital and assured them of security, a Taliban source told ABC News on Wednesday.
The Taliban has said there is a general amnesty for all in Afghanistan, including former government officials, and that no one should flee the country.
Aug 18, 5:51 am
UK to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees over 5 years
The United Kingdom announced Tuesday a plan to welcome 20,000 Afghan refugees over five years.
The resettlement program will prioritize women, children and religious minorities.
“We have an enduring commitment to the Afghan people, and we will honour it,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter. “A new resettlement scheme will create a safe and legal route for those in most need to come and live safely in the UK.”
While addressing members of parliament on Wednesday morning, Johnson said his government has so far secured the safe return of 306 U.K. nationals and 2,052 Afghan citizens as part of the resettlement program, with a further 2,000 applications for Afghan nationals completed “and many more being processed.” An additional 800 British troops will be deployed to Afghanistan’s main international airport in Kabul to “support this evacuation operation,” according to Johnson.
“We are proud to bring these brave Afghans to our shores — and we continue to appeal for more to come forwards,” he said.
Aug 17, 11:55 pm
US Embassy destroyed some Afghans’ passports during evacuation
Last week when the U.S. Embassy in Kabul ordered staff to destroy sensitive material, including documents, passports were destroyed as well.
During the evacuation, embassy personnel destroyed the passports of Afghans that had been submitted for visa processing, according to a Democratic lawmaker’s office.
Rep. Andy Kim, D-NJ, has been compiling requests for assistance for Afghans on the ground, with his office funneling pleas for help through an email address. In the email’s response note, obtained by ABC News, it says, “Passports that were in the Embassy’s possession have been destroyed. Currently, it is not possible to provide further visa services in Afghanistan.”
A State Department spokesperson acknowledged that was true, but called it “standard operating procedure” during an evacuation and said it “will not prevent people who are otherwise eligible for evacuation from traveling.
Aug 17, 9:38 pm
House Armed Services Committee Republicans request Biden’s plan for Afghanistan
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter to Biden requesting information about his “plan” for Afghanistan.
“For months, we have been asking you for a plan on your withdrawal from Afghanistan. You failed to provide us with one and based on the horrific events currently unfolding in Afghanistan, we are confident that we never received your plan because you never had one,” the letter says.
“The security and humanitarian crisis now unfolding in Afghanistan could have been avoided if you had done any planning. Pretending this isn’t your problem will only make things worse. We remain gravely concerned the void left in Afghanistan will be rapidly filled by terror groups. The Taliban now control the country. Al Qaeda used Afghanistan to plot and execute the 9/11 attacks and other acts of terrorism,” the letter continues. “You cannot let this happen again.”
Notably, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. — a member of the committee — has also signed the letter.
Cheney appeared on ABC’s This Week Sunday and said that Biden “absolutely” bears responsibility for the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, as does former President Donald Trump and his administration.
“What we’re watching right now in Afghanistan is what happens when America withdraws from the world,” Cheney told ABC This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “So everybody who has been saying, ‘America needs to withdraw, America needs to retreat,’ we are getting a devastating, catastrophic real-time lesson in what that means.”
(NEW YORK) — American Airlines will not serve alcohol in coach until at least 2022, aligning with the expiration of the Transportation Security Administration’s federal mask mandate for airports and planes.
American and Southwest airlines suspended alcohol sales early in the pandemic and said they wouldn’t restart serving booze until September, when the mask mandate originally expired. That date has now been extended to Jan. 18.
Southwest told ABC News it hasn’t decided whether it, too, will extend its alcohol suspension beyond September.
United Airlines has stopped selling hard liquor but is serving beer, wine and hard seltzer.
American’s announcement comes as the Federal Aviation Administration has reported a surge in unruly passengers.
The FAA announced Thursday that it has proposed $1 million in fines for unruly passengers in 2021. The agency said it’s received more than 3,889 reports of unruly behavior this year and that 71% of the reported incidents involved passengers who refused to comply with the federal mask mandate.
Many of the incidents aboard U.S. aircraft also have been fueled by alcohol, including one on a Frontier Airlines flight in which a man was duct-taped to his seat after allegedly touching the breasts of two flight attendants and punching a third. Frontier said the man had requested multiple drinks, spilled on himself, and then walked around the aircraft without wearing a shirt.
The FAA is also asking airport bars and restaurants not to serve alcohol to-go.
American will continue to serve alcohol in first class.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — Four police officers were wounded during a shootout after they responded to a call about an armed robbery in New Mexico on Thursday morning.
Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina told reporters Thursday that three of the four officers were shot during the incident, which occurred at a business in the Foothills in northeast Albuquerque.
“We are here at a horrible scene. … These officers put their lives at risk on every single call and their families never want to get the calls they’re getting today,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller told reporters.
The officer in critical condition was shot in the upper chest, just above the vest, Medina said, while another was shot in the arm. Both required surgery. A third officer was shot at the center of his bulletproof vest, and the fourth was injured by what Medina said likely was shrapnel or glass.
One of the suspects had also been shot during the incident and was in custody at the hospital. Keller said APD had been working with local, state and federal law enforcement to locate a second suspect on Thursday morning, but by the afternoon, the APD tweeted that the suspect had been caught. At least four other people had been detained, Medina said, adding that their investigation would determine if there would be any additional charges.
The APD urged anyone with information, or photo or video evidence, to come forward.
Remembering two officers who died in the line of duty on Aug. 18, 2005, Medina said, “It’s a very emotional time.”
