(NEW YORK) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection said a “very small number” of Afghan evacuees have been “flagged for concern” during their vetting and screening at military bases around the world.
“It’s exactly why CBP conducted careful and thorough vetting,” Keri Brady, the assistant director at CBP’s National Targeting Center, told law enforcement leaders around the country Friday on a call, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News.
CBP has deployed resources to overseas bases where Afghans are being transported to conduct vetting and screening using biometrics, along with counterparts from the FBI.
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and the State Department spoke on the call about the administration’s handling of Afghan nationals once they are in the United States.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at Friday’s briefing that DHS would take the lead in helping Afghans settle in the U.S.
Officials on the call also detailed different threat scenarios that authorities are tracking domestically and abroad.
DHS said it is tracking people abroad who could use the relocation process as a way to get into the U.S.
John Cohen, the acting head of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, said they are monitoring “whether individuals who are abroad or ISIS elements could use the relocation process as a way to introduce operatives intending to conduct an attack within the homeland.” In an effort to “counteract” this threat, Cohen said there is an extensive screening process.
Timothy Langan, the assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division, echoed Cohen’s concerns, saying they “can’t rule out” extremists trying to use the evacuations to come to the U.S.
“We [also] can’t rule out that this could be some type of additional motivator,” Langan explained.
The DHS is also monitoring if people in the U.S. are inspired by “narratives associated with al-Qaida, ISIS or other foreign terrorist group, and whether they would view the events occurring in Afghanistan as an opportunity to engage in violence here at home,” Cohen said.
Cohen told law enforcement leaders that there are domestic violent extremists lashing out because Afghans are coming to the U.S.
“In our analysis of online platforms commonly used by anti-government white supremacist and other domestic violent extremist organizations and groups, we are seeing several narrative trends emerge having to do with concerns [about] the relocation of Afghans to the United States,” Cohen said. “In it is an element of the great replacement concept, or a concept that would lead to a loss of control and authority by the white race, and there are concerns that those narratives may incite violent activities directed at immigrant communities, certain faith communities or even those who are relocated to the United States.”
Cohen also explained on the call that some extremists see what the Taliban did as a “success.”
“In those narrative streams, there have been commentary focusing on potential acts of violence directed at U.S. government, law enforcement and others who are considered to be symbols of the current government structure,” Cohen explained.
Langan said the FBI stood up a command post at its headquarters to detect any “potential national security or public safety concerns,” and added they are working 24/7.
The State Department has relocated over 100,000 individuals from Afghanistan and “many” in the last three weeks, according to Larry Bartlett, the agency’s director of refugee resettlement.
Officials also provided more details about the process of coming to the United States, saying in addition to opening up Washington Dulles International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport they expect to open more airports to Afghans soon. They did not go into further detail.
When Afghan evacuees arrive at a military base, they are tested for COVID-19, and if they test positive are quarantined on base. They are tested again once they arrive into the U.S., the acting associate director of Field Operations at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said.
Upon arrival into the U.S., they are given the option to get a COVID-19 vaccine as well.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Sarina Faizy, 23, just graduated from William & Mary with a master’s in international law, and she said she’d hoped to celebrate with her family — instead she’s struggling to stay in contact with them.
Her family, including her six sisters, had been in hiding, looking for a way out of Afghanistan as President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline drew closer.
“They’re depressed, and they have a trauma, all Afghan people do,” Faizy told ABC News on Monday. “Right now, they’re kind of stuck in one place, and they don’t know what is going to happen next to them because of the Taliban.”
That was shortly before they escaped to Canada, mere days before a terror attack killed at least 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans near the airport in Kabul.
But many others may not be so lucky.
On Aug. 14, the Afghan government collapsed, overrun by the Taliban, after the U.S. military started pulling out, leaving thousands in the country with little protection under the new regime.
Since then, there’s been a rush to evacuate soldiers, personnel, contractors and Afghan citizens who helped Americans, plus other civilians. Over the last two weeks, some 114,000 people have been relocated.
“This is a wrong, wrong decision right now,” Faizy said, “not just because I’m an Afghan woman, no, because right now … it’s like more about the world.”
In February 2020, then-President Donald Trump agreed with the Taliban that the U.S. would pull out by May 1. Biden extended that, but Faizy said that’s still too soon.
“For 20 years, we struggle, we suffer, but we did we had some achievements some good achievements. I wouldn’t say that everything was perfectly good — we had corrupt people in the government — but you know, we were moving,” Faizy continued. “We said, like in English,’ baby steps, we were not ready to run.'”
Faizy was born and raised in Afghanistan, becoming at age 17 the youngest woman elected to the Kandahar City Council. She’s served as a leading spokesperson for women’s rights in her home country and now fears for their future.
“It’s going to be so difficult for them to, like, you know, put up with all new rules of the day — they say Sharia law, but it’s not a Sharia law, it’s their own,” she said of the Taliban.
She traveled to the United States in 2016 as part of the State Department’s International Visitor’s Program, and eventually she was selected for the Bush Fellowship program in Dallas for women from the Middle East. She said her experience as a young adult here is worlds different than her experiences in Afghanistan.
“I grew up in the war,” she said. In the U.S. “people that age, even my age, you know, people still, like, they don’t think about the world.”
Still, she remains hopeful.
“The good thing in Afghanistan is the unique culture,” she said. “No matter in what situation, we will be we will always keep that culture, no matter where we go, we will always have that culture because it’s in our blood.”
“I have a hope for a future of Afghanistan … women in the new generation, we still have a chance.”
(ETHIOPIA) — As chaos envelops Kabul after Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban seized control, horrific stories and heartbreaking images also pour out of Ethiopia. Some in the U.S. with a connection to the African country are feeling a call to action.
In Washington, D.C., home to the largest concentration of Ethiopians in the U.S. and the largest Ethiopian population outside Africa, there’s an intense debate over the war and who’s at fault.
“Tigray is part of Ethiopia. Tigrayans are Ethiopians until they decide otherwise. So any war, any suffering in Ethiopia, should be a pain to everybody,” Assefa Fisseha, a man who fled the country 20 years to begin a new life in America, told ABC News.
In Fisseha’s homeland, within the northern region of Tigray, millions are caught in the middle of civil war between Tigrayan defense forces and the Ethiopian government.
Each side has been accused of atrocities throughout the conflict, with systemic rape and starvation used as weapons of war, according to the United Nations, senior U.S. officials and monitoring groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Roads, bridges, hospitals and farms have been destroyed, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe, according to aid groups.
But information can be hard to come by. Internet outages by the Ethiopian government have disconnected families inside and outside the country for days, weeks or even months at a time, according to Internet monitor NetBlocks.
With over 110 million people, Ethiopia is the second-most populous country in Africa. The conflict has left thousands dead and displaced roughly two million people in Tigray, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
“On the ground, what I’m really seeing is just hungry people there, people are extremely paranoid and protective,” Leoh Hailu-Ghermy, who made a two-day trek to the region to deliver supplies and aid to refugees, told ABC News.
Hailu-Ghermy is one of the voices in the movement to end the war many activists call a modern-day genocide.
Earlier this month, more apparent victims of the atrocities in the brutal, 10-monthlong civil war washed up on a riverbank in neighboring Sudan. Fifty bodies were believed to be Tigrayans from a nearby village, according to The Associated Press.
There have been reports of massacres, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual assault by Ethiopian government troops, according to Amnesty International.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. has seen “acts of ethnic cleansing,” but stopped short of calling the atrocities genocide — a specific legal term in international law. The Ethiopian government has fiercely denied such accusations.
“It’s really heartbreaking to see that people’s livelihoods can be stripped away from them in such an unfair way and that the world wouldn’t care because of the geography of that place or because of the race of those people,” Hailu-Ghermy said.
Just last week, the Biden administration called out the Ethiopian government for obstructing humanitarian aid, including convoys, saying aid workers will run out of food this week.
In May, President Joe Biden issued a lengthy statement, calling for a ceasefire, negotiations to halt the conflict and an end to human rights abuses, including the widespread sexual violence.
The Biden administration also tapped a special envoy for the region to push for a diplomatic solution — and fired a warning shot at the Ethiopian government, a critical U.S. partner, by imposing limited sanctions.
In May, the State Department said it imposed visa bans on officials from Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea — whose military crossed the border to fight Tigrayan forces. Because visas are confidential by law, it did not say who was impacted but the U.S. Treasury slapped financial sanctions on Monday on General Filipos Woldeyohannes, the chief of staff of the Eritrean Defense Forces, accusing his forces of massacres, looting, rape, torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians.
Hailu-Ghermy and other advocates say they are looking for more action.
Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed was once seen as a popular reformer when he came into power in 2018, even winning the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a decades-long war with neighboring Eritrea. His election unseated the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, which dominated Ethiopia politics prior to his administration, and tensions between his federal government and their regional leaders exploded into conflict last November.
“Now that the conflict has been ongoing for several months, it produces its own logic. And so every atrocity, every retaliation begets another retaliation and unfortunately, another atrocity,” Aly Verjee, a senior adviser to the Africa program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told ABC News.
Tigrayans celebrated when Abiy declared a ceasefire in June, but now their forces are on the offensive and Abiy responded with a call for all capable citizens to take up arms and join the fight to show patriotism.
“Ethiopians at home and abroad, your motherland calls upon you. History has shown that there is no force that can stand in our way when we say no more,” he said in a statement.
Analysts fear the conflict will spiral further out of control, putting hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine and potentially spilling over borders to Ethiopia’s neighbors.
“Let’s not forget that the reason the majority of Ethiopian Americans are in the United States is because, at one time or another, there was conflict in Ethiopia. Let’s not see another generation of Ethiopians feel that they have to leave the country because of conflict,” Verjee said.
ABC News Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
Two suicide bombers affiliated with ISIS-K carried out what the Pentagon called a “complex attack” outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 13 American service members and wounding 18, among scores of Afghan casualties.
President Joe Biden has addressed the nation on the attack from the White House Thursday, saying, “America will not be intimidated.” Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House last week, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and warned of the threat of attacks on the ground.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 27, 11:06 am
No second suicide bomber: Pentagon
Maj. Gen. William “Hank” Taylor said at a Pentagon briefing on Friday that the U.S. now believes there was just one explosion on Thursday and one suicide bomber — and that there was no second explosion or bomber at or near the Baron Hotel.
“I can confirm for you that we do not believe that there was a second explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, that it was one suicide bomber,” he said. “We’re not sure how that report was provided incorrectly, but we do know it’s not any surprise that in the confusion of very dynamic events like this can cause information sometimes to be misreported or garbled.”
Officials had said at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday that they believed there were two suicide bombers — one outside the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport and one at or near the Baron Hotel, the latter of which has now been retracted.
Aug 27, 10:46 am
170 Afghans killed in the Kabul attack: Afghan official
At least 170 Afghans were killed and 200 wounded in the attack in Kabul on Thursday, according to an official at the Ministry of Public Health who spoke on condition of anonymity with ABC News.
He said among the 170 dead, 34 are male (including two boys and 32 men), and four are female (including one girl and three women). He said that the identities of the 132 other people are still unknown at this stage.
The World Health Organization regional headquarters in Cairo had reported earlier at least 161 Afghan civilians died in the attack in Kabul on Thursday.
Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital in Kabul reported to the WHO it had 145 dead bodies brought into the hospital. The Emergency Hospital in Kabul also reported 16 dead on arrival.
Aug 27, 10:04 am
US continues evacuations despite threats of more attacks
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command and highest-ranking commander in the Middle East, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that further security threats following the attack in Kabul are “extremely real.”
“We believe it is their desire to continue those attacks, and we expect those attacks to continue,” he said via a videoconference.
“Right now, our focus really, we have other active threat streams, extremely active threat streams against the airfield, we want to make sure we are taking the steps to protect ourselves there. Our focus is on that,” he added.
He said the U.S. is doing everything it can to prepare for those attacks including reaching out to the Taliban, “who are actually providing the outer security cordon around the airfield, to make sure they know what we expect them to do to protect us.”
Despite Thursday’s “complex attack” and threats for more, he said the U.S. will continue its evacuation mission ahead of a full military withdrawal on Aug. 31.
Biden, in remarks from the White House later on Thursday, underscored that he has repeatedly warned that the evacuation mission in Afghanistan was a dangerous one — but one that would continue until the end of the month, even as threats persist.
“These ISIS terrorists will not win,” Biden said. “We will rescue the Americans in there. We will get our Afghan allies out. And our mission will go on.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in a White House briefing following his remarks, cited “ongoing threats” as reasoning for why Biden and his military commanders stuck to the Aug. 31 deadline.
Aug 27, 9:11 am
Former Army Ranger details ‘vulnerable’ US position at airport gates
Jariko Denman, a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and was working in Kabul on Thursday alongside other veterans to help get evacuees out, described the conditions outside the airport to ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday as one that left American forces vulnerable.
“The way that we were forced to expose ourselves in order to get our people in, made us very, very much vulnerable to it,” said Denman, who was flown out of Kabul and to Qatar just ahead of the attack.
“With the sheer numbers of people coming in, we didn’t have the time to, you know, do those different steps and security of walking up, talk to them, search them,” Denman said. “It was just, you know, a mob of 7,000, 8,000 people arm’s distance away.”
Denman said the conditions outside the gate were the worst he’s seen in his 20 years in the Army which includes 15 deployments.
“Families, people carrying toddlers, babies, elderly, trying to get to these gates, to get to us to get through, and I would describe it as a mosh pit on steroids,” he said. “You know, 600, 700 meters long of compacted human beings trying to get to one little choke point. It was terrible.”
“In 20 years, I never saw an operating force more sleep-deprived or just working more than these Marines and other airmen and soldiers that were on the ground,” he added.
Denman, who is in touch with people still in Kabul, said he’s hearing the same theme in the wake of the attack: “It was just carnage.”
Aug 27, 7:49 am
‘Every effort was made to destroy’ Kabul embassy staff details, UK says
The United Kingdom said “every effort was made to destroy sensitive material” when British embassy staff in Kabul evacuated their building as Taliban fighters approached Afghanistan’s capital.
“We have worked tirelessly to secure the safety of those who worked for us including getting three families to safety,” a spokesperson for the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told ABC News in a statement Friday. “During the drawdown of our Embassy every effort was made to destroy sensitive material.”
A report published Thursday by British daily national newspaper The Times said its journalist found papers with the contact details of Afghans working for the U.K. government and of locals applying for positions “scattered on the ground at the British embassy compound in Kabul that has been seized by the Taliban.” Some Afghan employees and their families have not been able to evacuate Kabul, according to The Times.
A source at the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told ABC News: “We are grateful to The Times for sharing the information retrieved with us and working with us to enable us to get these three families to safety.”
Aug 27, 6:59 am
US, allies evacuate 12,500 people from Kabul in past 24 hours
The United States has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of some 105,000 people from Kabul since Aug. 14, when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital, according to a White House official.
In a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday, 35 U.S. military flights carried approximately 8,500 evacuees out of Kabul. Another 4,000 people were evacuated via 54 coalition aircraft. Since the end of July, approximately 110,600 people have been relocated from Kabul via U.S. military and coalition flights, the White House
Aug 27, 6:18 am
Philadelphia airport to receive Afghan refugees
People fleeing Afghanistan are expected to arrive at Philadelphia’s primary airport in the coming days, according to a city spokesperson.
“This is a federal-led operation, and we are collaborating with the federal government in this emergency response, protecting the rights and dignity of the Afghan families arriving in the country,” the spokesperson told ABC News on Friday. “We stand ready to provide medical assistance, housing, and connection to our diverse community of immigrant service providers who can assist with an array of social services.”
The Philadelphia International Airport is the second airport in the United States to welcome arrivals of Afghan refugees, in addition to the Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
It was unclear when or exactly how many Afghan refugees would be landing in Philadelphia.
“Philadelphia stands in solidarity with Afghan refugees and we look forward to providing them a safe haven in our Welcoming City,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement.
Aug 27, 5:33 am
UK enters final stages of Afghanistan evacuation
The United Kingdom announced Friday that it has entered the final stages of its evacuation from Afghanistan and no more people will be called to the airport to leave.
Processing facilities at the Baron Hotel in Kabul, outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport, have been closed and the British Armed Forces will now focus on evacuating the U.K. nationals and others who have already been processed and are at the airport awaiting departure, according to a press release from the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
“The U.K.’s ability to process further cases is now extremely reduced and additional numbers will be limited. No further people will be called forward to the airport for evacuation,” the defense ministry said. “Evacuating all those civilians we have already processed will free up the capacity needed on U.K. military aircraft to bring out our remaining diplomats and military personnel.”
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called it a “remarkable achievement” that his government has evacuated more than 13,000 people from Kabul since Aug. 13, when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital.
“Our top priority as we move through this process will be the protection of all those involved who are operating in a heightened threat environment,” Wallace said in a statement Friday. “It is with deep regret that not everyone has been able to be evacuated during this process.”
“We will continue to honour our debt to all those who have not yet been able to leave Afghanistan,” he added. “We will do all that we can to ensure they reach safety.”
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — With the Taliban growing more violent and adding checkpoints near Kabul’s airport, an all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a final daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed the “Pineapple Express” to shepherd hundreds of at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety, members of the group told ABC News.
Moving after nightfall in near-pitch black darkness and extremely dangerous conditions, the group said it worked unofficially in tandem with the United States military and U.S. embassy to move people, sometimes one person at a time, or in pairs, but rarely more than a small bunch, inside the wire of the U.S. military-controlled side of Hamid Karzai International Airport.
The Pineapple Express’ mission was underway Thursday when the attack occurred in Kabul. Two suicide bombers believed to have been ISIS fighters killed at least 13 U.S. service members — 10 U.S. Marines, a Navy corpsman, an Army soldier and another service member — and wounded 15 other service members, according to U.S. officials.
There were wounded among the Pineapple Express travelers from the blast, and members of the group said they were assessing whether unaccounted-for Afghans they were helping had been killed.
As of Thursday morning, the group said it had brought as many as 500 Afghan special operators, assets and enablers and their families into the airport in Kabul overnight, handing them each over to the protective custody of the U.S. military.
That number added to more than 130 others over the past 10 days who had been smuggled into the airport encircled by Taliban fighters since the capital fell to the extremists on Aug. 16 by Task Force Pineapple, an ad hoc groups of current and former U.S. special operators, aid workers, intelligence officers and others with experience in Afghanistan who banded together to save as many Afghan allies as they could.
“Dozens of high-risk individuals, families with small children, orphans, and pregnant women, were secretly moved through the streets of Kabul throughout the night and up to just seconds before ISIS detonated a bomb into the huddled mass of Afghans seeking safety and freedom,” Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret commander who led the private rescue effort, told ABC News.
After succeeding with helping dozens of Afghan commandos and interpreters get into the protective ring of the airport created by the 6,000 American troops President Joe Biden dispatched to the airfield after Kabul fell to the Taliban, the group initiated an ambitious ground operation this week aided by U.S. troops inside. The objective was to move individuals and families through the cover of darkness on the “Pineapple Express.” The week-long effort and Wednesday’s operation were observed by ABC News under the agreement of secrecy while the heart-pounding movements unfolded.
The operation carried out Wednesday night was an element of “Task Force Pineapple,” an informal group whose mission began as a frantic effort on Aug. 15 to get one former Afghan commando who had served with Mann into the Kabul airport as he was being hunted by the Taliban who were texting him death threats.
They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was, therefore, a high-value target for them, sources told ABC News.
Two months ago, this commando told ABC News he had narrowly escaped a tiny outpost in northern Afghanistan that was later overrun while awaiting his U.S. special immigrant visa to be approved.
The effort since he was saved in a harrowing effort, along with his family of six, reached a crescendo this week with dozens of covert movements coordinated virtually on Wednesday by more than 50 people in an encrypted chat room, which Mann described as a night full of dramatic scenes rivaling a “Jason Bourne” thriller unfolding every 10 minutes.
The small groups of Afghans repeatedly encountered Taliban foot soldiers who they said beat them but never checked identity papers that might have revealed them as operators who spent two decades killing Taliban leadership. All carried U.S. visas, pending visa applications or new applications prepared by members of Task Force Pineapple, they told ABC News.
“This Herculean effort couldn’t have been done without the unofficial heroes inside the airfield who defied their orders to not help beyond the airport perimeter, by wading into sewage canals and pulling in these targeted people who were flashing pineapples on their phones,” Mann said.
With the uniformed U.S. military unable to venture outside the airport’s perimeter to collect Americans and Afghans who’ve sought U.S. protection for their past joint service, they instead provided overwatch and awaited coordinated movements by an informal Pineapple Express ground team that included “conductors” led by former Green Beret Capt. Zac Lois, known as the underground railroad’s “engineer.”
The Afghan operators, assets, interpreters and their families were known as “passengers” and they were being guided remotely by “shepherds,” who are, in most cases their loyal former U.S. special operations forces and CIA comrades and commanders, according to chat room communications viewed by ABC News.
There was one engineer, a few conductors, as well as people who were performing intelligence-gathering duties. The intelligence was pooled in the encrypted chat group in real-time and included guiding people on maps to GPS pin drops at rally points for them to stage in the shadows and in hiding until summoned by a conductor wearing a green chem light, ABC News observed in the encrypted chat.
Once summoned, passengers would hold up their smartphones with a graphic of yellow pineapples on a pink field.
Before the deadly ISIS-K bombing on Thursday near the Abbey Gate of the airport known as HKIA, intelligence warnings were issued about possible improvised explosive device attacks by ISIS-K. Around 8 p.m. EST Wednesday, the shepherds reported in the chatroom, which was viewed by ABC News, one by one that their passenger groups maneuvering discreetly in the darkness toward rally points had suddenly gone dark and were unreachable on their cell phones.
“We have lost comms with several of our teams,” texted Jason Redman, a combat-wounded former Navy SEAL and author, who was shepherding Afghans he knew.
There was concern the Taliban had dropped the cell towers — but another Task Force Pineapple member, a Green Beret, reported that he learned the U.S. military had employed cell phone jammers to counter the IED threat at Abbey gate. Within an hour, most had reestablished communications with the “passengers” and the slow, deliberate movements of each group resumed under the ticking clock of sunrise in Kabul, ABC News observed in the encrypted chat.
“The whole night was a roller-coaster ride. People were so terrified in that chaotic environment. These people were so exhausted, I kept trying to put myself in their shoes,” Redman said.
Looking back at an effort that saved at least, by their count, 630 Afghan lives, Redman expressed deep frustration “that our own government didn’t do this. We did what we should do, as Americans.”
Many of the Afghans arrived near Abbey Gate and waded through a sewage-choked canal toward a U.S. soldier wearing red sunglasses to identify himself. They waved their phones with the pineapples and were scooped up and brought inside the wire to safety. Others were brought in by an Army Ranger wearing a modified American flag patch with the Ranger Regiment emblem, sources told ABC News.
Lois said the Task Force Pineapple was able to accomplish a truly historic event, by evacuating hundreds of personnel over the last week.
“That is an astounding number for an organization that was only assembled days before the start of operations and most of its members had never met each other in person,” Lois told ABC News.
Lois said he modeled his slow and steady system of maneuvering the Afghan families in the darkness after Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad for American slave escapees.
The Afghan passengers represented the span of the two-decade war there, and participants included Army Maj. Jim Gant, a retired Green Beret known as “Lawrence of Afghanistan,” who was the subject of a 2014 Nightline investigation.
“I have been involved in some of the most incredible missions and operations that a special forces guy could be a part of, and I have never been a part of anything more incredible than this,” Gant told ABC News. “The bravery and courage and commitment of my brothers and sisters in the Pineapple community was greater than the U.S. commitment on the battlefield.”
“I just want to get my people out,” he added.
Dan O’Shea, a retired SEAL commander, said he successfully helped his own group, which included a U.S. citizen who served as an operative and his Afghan father and brother in a nail-biting crucible as they walked on foot to one entry point after another for hours. They dodged Taliban checkpoints and patrols in order to get inside the U.S. side of the airport and on a plane out of Kabul.
“He was not willing to let his father and his brother behind; even it meant he would die. He refused to leave his family,” O’Shea, a former counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan, told ABC News. “Leaving a man behind is not in our SEAL ethos. Many Afghans have a stronger vision of our democratic values than many Americans do.”
It all began with trying to save one Afghan Commando, whose special immigrant visa was never finalized.
During an intense night last week involving coordination between Mann and another Green Beret, an intelligence officer, former aid workers and a staffer for Florida Republican and Green Beret officer Rep. Mike Waltz, the ad hoc team enlisted the aid of a sleepless U.S. Embassy officer inside the airport. He helped Marines at a gate to identify the former Afghan commando, who was caught in the throngs of civilians outside the airport and who said he saw two civilians knocked to the ground and killed.
“Two people died next to me — 1 foot away,” he told ABC News from outside the airport that night, as he tried for hours to reach an entry control point manned by U.S. Marines a short distance away.
With Taliban fighters mixing into the crowd of thousands and firing their AK-47s above the masses, the former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter, where he shouted the password “Pineapple!” to American troops at the checkpoint. The password has since changed, the sources said.
Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him with the aid of the same U.S. embassy officer.
Mann said the group of friends decided to keep going by saving his family and hundreds more of his elite forces comrades on the run from the Taliban.
Former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst Mick Mulroy is part of both Task Force Pineapple and Task Force Dunkirk, who are assisting former Afghan comrades.
“They never wavered. I and many of my friends are here today because of their bravery in battle. We owe them all effort to get them out and honor our word,” Mulroy said.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
Two suicide bombers affiliated with ISIS-K carried out what the Pentagon called a “complex attack” outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 13 American service members and wounding 18, among scores of Afghan casualties.
President Joe Biden has addressed the nation on the attack from the White House Thursday, saying, “America will not be intimidated.” Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House last week, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and warned of the threat of attacks on the ground.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 27, 6:59 am
US, allies evacuate 12,500 people from Kabul in past 24 hours
The United States has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of some 105,000 people from Kabul since Aug. 14, when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital, according to a White House official.
In a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday, 35 U.S. military flights carried approximately 8,500 evacuees out of Kabul. Another 4,000 people were evacuated via 54 coalition aircraft. Since the end of July, approximately 110,600 people have been relocated from Kabul via U.S. military and coalition flights, the White House
Aug 27, 6:18 am
Philadelphia airport to receive Afghan refugees
People fleeing Afghanistan are expected to arrive at Philadelphia’s primary airport in the coming days, according to a city spokesperson.
“This is a federal-led operation, and we are collaborating with the federal government in this emergency response, protecting the rights and dignity of the Afghan families arriving in the country,” the spokesperson told ABC News on Friday. “We stand ready to provide medical assistance, housing, and connection to our diverse community of immigrant service providers who can assist with an array of social services.”
The Philadelphia International Airport is the second airport in the United States to welcome arrivals of Afghan refugees, in addition to the Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
It was unclear when or exactly how many Afghan refugees would be landing in Philadelphia.
“Philadelphia stands in solidarity with Afghan refugees and we look forward to providing them a safe haven in our Welcoming City,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement.
Aug 27, 5:33 am
UK enters final stages of Afghanistan evacuation
The United Kingdom announced Friday that it has entered the final stages of its evacuation from Afghanistan and no more people will be called to the airport to leave.
Processing facilities at the Baron Hotel in Kabul, outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport, have been closed and the British Armed Forces will now focus on evacuating the U.K. nationals and others who have already been processed and are at the airport awaiting departure, according to a press release from the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
“The U.K.’s ability to process further cases is now extremely reduced and additional numbers will be limited. No further people will be called forward to the airport for evacuation,” the defense ministry said. “Evacuating all those civilians we have already processed will free up the capacity needed on U.K. military aircraft to bring out our remaining diplomats and military personnel.”
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called it a “remarkable achievement” that his government has evacuated more than 13,000 people from Kabul since Aug. 13, when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital.
“Our top priority as we move through this process will be the protection of all those involved who are operating in a heightened threat environment,” Wallace said in a statement Friday. “It is with deep regret that not everyone has been able to be evacuated during this process.”
“We will continue to honour our debt to all those who have not yet been able to leave Afghanistan,” he added. “We will do all that we can to ensure they reach safety.”
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — When Waheed Arian heard of the two bombings out Kabul’s airport in Afghanistan, he rushed to call his family members to ensure that they were safe. Arian is a doctor and ex-refugee, who fled Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule in 1999, and now lives in the United Kingdom.
With sweaty palms, a racing heart and the memories of death and destruction from his time in Afghanistan as a child, he’s wary of what the future might hold for him and his family.
“When I get off the phone, I break down in tears because I feel helpless,” Arian told ABC News. “This is the case for so many Afghans whose families are over there. … It haunts you forever.”
The bombings, for which the terrorist group ISIS-K has claimed responsibility, left at least 60 Afghan civilians dead, as well as at least 13 U.S. service members, according to the Pentagon.
The attack on Hamid Karzai International Airport, the main source of hope for those trying to escape the city and seek refuge elsewhere, has left many Afghans feeling desperate.
Waiting for news from home
Shabnam, who asked ABC News to use only her first name for the safety of her family in Afghanistan, said she can’t concentrate. The ex-refugee, who is now a citizen living in the U.S., said she is numb and can’t focus on her work, her schooling or her responsibilities as she awaits news about her family’s fate.
When Shabnam was asked if her family was safe, she responded: “What does that mean? If I say that they are safe, they’re safe as prisoners. … The banks are closed. The businesses are closed. Everything is closed, and they don’t have freedom of speech anymore.”
Shabnam is calling on international forces to step up and help the Afghan people before the country reverts back to its old ways, particularly calling on the U.S. to take the lead.
“It is their responsibility as our leaders, the responsibility of the international community not to just not watch and be silent,” Shabnam said.
Uncertainty plagues Afghan families
With the Taliban taking over Afghanistan before the United States’ Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw troops, many citizens fear what could come of their country and their livelihood in the Middle Eastern nation.
Activist and Afghan journalist Mahbouba Seraj returned to Afghanistan from exile in 2003 with the mission to advance women’s rights in the country. In an interview with ABC News Live, she said she made a commitment to Afghanistan to continue to move the country forward and won’t leave the country despite the danger.
During the interview, her words were interrupted by a blast, later determined to be the U.S. military disposing of equipment before exiting the country.
“I cannot leave Afghanistan at this point,” said Seraj. “Everybody worked together to make this country really the way it is. … We all worked very hard, and then it disappeared, and I knew that I have to stick around. I have to stick around to prove it to myself, to prove it to whoever, as far as my young girls.”
Many women in the country fear that the Taliban will revert to the oppressive tactics they used when they ruled in the 1990s, like keeping women at home, out of work and out of schools.
Many also fear that the militant group will retaliate against citizens with connections to America, who’ve worked with the U.S. or Afghan government or who have criticized the Taliban in the past. Under the Taliban’s previous rule, citizens could be stoned to death, have their hands cut off or be publicly executed for violating the Taliban’s laws.
For Arian, the violence Thursday reminded him of the civil war he experienced as a child, when the Soviet Union withdrew from the country and mujahedeen forces turned on each other in 1992.
“Bullets flying, rockets flying and we had to just leave everything, abandon the house,” said Arian. “The schools were destroyed, the hospitals were destroyed, the whole infrastructure was gone.”
Arian believes he’s echoing the voice of the millions of Afghans who’ve lived through the civil war.
“They remember — that’s why they’re physically, mentally tired,” Arian said. “They’re exhausted from running. They’re exhausted from refugee camps, they’re on high alert constantly. And now we see today that there’s nowhere safe for them.”
The future of Afghanistan
For many, the future of Afghanistan and its people hangs in the balance as U.S. troops leave the country behind. While many continue to flock to airports and plan escape routes out of the country, some are hunkering down, determined to rescue the nation they call home.
Arian’s family is divided — his father wants to stay and his siblings want to flee.
“He just told me, ‘Son, I’m tired of running. I’ve spent my entire life running. I just want to die in peace here if there is any peace,'” said Arian. “When I speak to some of my sisters, they’re fearful for their lives. They don’t know whether we would go back again to the civil war that most of them had witnessed along with me, and they have children now.”
Seraj, who has dedicated her life to activism and bettering the conditions of Afghan women for decades, said that all her fears are coming true.
Without plans to leave Kabul, she’s faced with ongoing questions about what’s next for the nation.
“The control is getting out of everybody’s hands,” Seraj said. “We’ve lost a lot of our people. Our soldiers are no longer what they were and keeping us safe. The U.S. Army is no longer there. Nobody’s there. What is going to be happening?”
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — An explosion that killed at least 13 U.S. service members in Afghanistan Thursday was part of a “complex” attack near the Kabul airport, the Pentagon said.
Two ISIS suicide bombers detonated in the vicinity of both the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate and the adjacent Baron Hotel, according to Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
The U.S. service members killed in the explosion near the Abbey Gate included 10 Marines, one Army, one to be determined and one Navy hospital corpsman, or medic, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News. A 13th service member injured in the attack at Abbey Gate later succumbed to his wounds, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson said Thursday evening.
“We can confirm at this time 10 Marines were killed in the line of duty at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Additionally, several more were wounded and are being cared for at this time,” Maj. Jim Stenger, Marine Corps spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday night.
Another 18 service members were injured in the attack, U.S. Central Command said, up from the 15 initially confirmed by the command.
“We’re still working to calculate the total losses,” McKenzie said during a briefing at the Pentagon Thursday afternoon. “We just don’t know what that is right now.”
The attack marks the third-deadliest single day for American forces in Afghanistan in the 20-year war.
The injured troops are being evacuated from Afghanistan on C-17s equipped with surgical units.
At least 60 Afghan civilians were killed and over 140 others injured in the attack, according to the Associated Press.
The “complex” attack unfolded Thursday evening local time in Kabul, with one explosion at the Abbey Gate causing “a number of US and civilian casualties” and another explosion near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from the gate, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said.
“The attack on the Abbey Gate was followed by a number of ISIS gunmen who opened fire on civilians and military forces,” McKenzie said.
McKenzie said it was his “working assumption” that a suicide bomber was going through the Abbey Gate — being searched and checked by U.S. service members — when the person detonated the vest. The general did not know the size of the bomb or have much information about the explosion near the Baron Hotel. No bomber got onto airport grounds, McKenzie said.
“Clearly there had been a failure” from the Taliban forces checking people outside the airport, the general said.
Hours after the explosions, the militant group ISIS-K, which stands for Islamic State Khorasan Province, claimed credit for the attacks, confirming a suicide bombing.
According to a translation from SITE intelligence group, the Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency issued a report on the attack and provided a photo of the bomber.
The message said the Khorasan Province fighter overcame all security fortifications and reached a distance of “no more than five meters from the American forces.” The fighter detonated his explosive belt, killing 60 and wounding over 100 others, the militant group wrote, citing “military sources,” according to SITE.
McKenzie said the U.S. “will go after” those responsible for the attack “if we can find who’s associated with this,” and that “we believe it is their desire to continue those attacks.”
President Joe Biden reiterated that message during remarks on the attacks Thursday.
“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.
Prior to the explosions, the U.S. Embassy had warned citizens on Wednesday to leave the airport.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson, on the ground in Kabul, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday morning before the explosions that the threat was “clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling.”
The airport has been the site of tragedy and chaos for days as people rushed to be evacuated since Afghanistan’s government’s collapsed and the Taliban seized control.
Approximately 104,000 people have been evacuated since the effort began on Aug. 14, the White House said Thursday, with a withdrawal deadline set for Aug. 31. The U.S. State Department said Thursday afternoon it believes around 1,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, a majority of whom want to leave.
Biden said the U.S. “will not be deterred by terrorists” and vowed to pull the remaining Americans and allies out of Afghanistan.
“These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans in there. We will get our Afghan allies out,” he said Thursday. “And our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”
Biden called the service members killed in the attack “heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.”
The Pentagon is going through the next-of-kin notification process. Once that is completed, the president will call the troops’ families, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday.
“We have some sense … what the families of these brave heroes are feeling today. You get this feeling like you’re being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest. There’s no way out,” Biden said. “My heart aches for you.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Conor Finnegan, Luis Martinez and Cindy Smith contributed to this report.
(RAMSTEIN, Germany) — In one of the largest airlift operations in history, Ramstein, Germany, has become the central hub to evacuate and process Afghan evacuees. According to the U.S. Air Force, the vast majority of people fleeing Afghanistan will come through Ramstein, and the base has already received at least 15,000 people as of this morning.
Upon arrival to Ramstein, refugees are immediately given medical aid, food and shelter while they undergo a final security check. Air Force officials say the goal is to get people in and out as quickly as possible, and aim to have people on their way to America within three days.
According to an internal report obtained by ABC News on Monday, officials estimate that some 20% of evacuees at Ramstein lacked documentation.
Top U.S. general in Europe Tod Wolters spoke with Pentagon reporters Wednesday and said that overall European bases could potentially process as many as 25,000 evacuees.
“We’ve received 55 flights at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and we currently have 5783 evacuees on deck at Ramstein. We’ve received three flights at Naval Air Station Sigonella,” said Wolters on Wednesday.
The makeshift tent camp in Ramstein has the capacity to hold 10,000 evacuees, and 7,000 refugees have already been processed, according to Walters.
But, some are concerned that the increasing number of evacuees will overwhelm resources and facilities at the Ramstein base in coming days.
In addition to Ramstein, Germany has also agreed to let the U.S. use the nearby U.S. Army garrison in Kaiserslautern and a joint training facility in Grafenwoehr in eastern Germany to house evacuees, ABC News reported on Monday.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for two explosions that erupted near the Kabul airport on Thursday and killed at least 12 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans.
U.S. officials had warned of an ISIS attack over the past week in wake of the sweeping Taliban takeover. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie of the U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the attackers were two ISIS suicide bombers.
Experts say the group, dubbed the “mortal adversary” of the Taliban, pose the biggest threat to America’s presence in the country.
The U.S. is now racing against time to withdraw by President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline.
Biden warned Tuesday, “Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians.”
What is ISIS-K?
ISIS-Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K, is an affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS), which established a caliphate in Iraq and Syria that was later destroyed by the American forces. ISIS has geographical branches in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and ISIS-K is its affiliate based in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
Elizabeth Neumann, an ABC contributor and former U.S. homeland security official, said the group emerged about six years ago.
ISIS-K is the “mortal adversary” of the Taliban, Colin Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst with security consulting firm Soufan Group, told ABC News.
“It really tracked quite closely with the the evolution of Al-Qaeda and developed a similar kind of decentralized model really in response to U.S. counterterrorism pressure,” he said.
The group has an estimated 1,500 to 2,200 fighters, consisting of Arabs, Middle Easterners, Pakistanis and other South Asians, Clarke said.
He described them as a “transnational group” as opposed to the Taliban, which is predominantly comprised of Pashtuns, according to the Council of Foreign Relations.
There were 77 ISIS-K claimed or attributed attacks from January to April 2021 — three times as many ISIS-K attacks in Afghanistan than that same period last year, according to a June United Nations report. Last year the group attacked a maternity ward in Kabul on May 12 and Kabul University on Nov. 2.
ISIS-K “continues to pose a threat to both the country and the wider region” and is focused on recruitment, with its core base in small areas of the Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, the UN report said.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the group stands against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as well as the U.S.
“Their objective is to wantonly attack the U.S. because they see the U.S. as their main enemy,” he said. “Also, I think it’s designed to embarrass the Taliban as well. ISIS attempted to move in and establish a base in Afghanistan to compete with the Taliban. Their ideologies are pretty much the same. It’s more of a power struggle than an ideological or religious one.”
Neumann described the group as much more violent than the Taliban.
“When I think of ISIS, I think extremely brutal. It’s not that the Taliban has a good record of not being brutal, but it’s a slightly different type of brutality,” Neumann said. “[ISIS] sounds as if they’re trying to stand up a government and run a country.”
What is their agenda?
The group has an objective to carve out some piece of territory that they can rule, Clarke said, citing ISIS’s motto to “remain and expand.”
“If they were ever to reach the point where they felt like they were governing a sufficient amount of territory, they may very well attempt to declare a caliphate again,” he said.
He went on, “The Taliban is not at risk of being overtaken by ISIS-K, they just don’t have the numbers. ISIS-K is playing more of a spoiler role, where they’ll be able to kind of launch attacks, keep the Taliban off balance. But I don’t ever expect them to get to the point where they’re threatening to take over Afghanistan in the same way the Taliban did.”
Hoffman, with the Council on Foreign Relations, said that any attacks from ISIS-K shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“Over the past year, they’ve spread to an additional seven provinces. So clearly, ISIS-K has become more active and threatening in recent months,” Hoffman said. “The current upheaval and chaos in Afghanistan presents them with a myriad of new opportunities to draw attention to themselves and their cause and basically punish all their enemies — the U.S. but also the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as well.”
What threat do they pose to the U.S.?
With the U.S. leaving Afghanistan, experts say future attacks by ISIS-K are likely to occur.
“There’s nothing they’d love more than to plot an attack on the U.S.,” Clarke said.
An attack on U.S. soil isn’t likely for the “foreseeable future” but may be in the “long term,” according to Hoffman.
As for Afghanistan, with the Taliban takeover and rising terror threats like ISIS-K, its future is murky.
“Afghanistan overall is being re-submerged into a very, very dark period,” Hoffman said.
