Since the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan last August and US troops officially left the country, more than 800 American citizens have been evacuated from the country by the US government, the data provided by the State Department and House GOP investigators show.
The previously unreported figures highlight the ongoing nature of the Biden Administration’s efforts to contact with and ultimately evacuate hundreds of Americans that were stuck in Afghanistan after failing to leave the country along with US troops that rapidly withdrew last summer.
At least 600 legal US permanent residents have also been evacuated since American boots left the ground, a State Department spokesperson informed, confirming the number of evacuated American citizens.
According to the same data, hundreds more Americans than was previously known were unable to leave Afghanistan were left behind by US evacuation efforts and a new investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republican staff now sheds light and issues blame on the continued evacuation efforts since the US withdrawal.
After the investigation has found that 800 Americans were helped out of Afghanistan, Republicans stressed that the Biden administration either undercounted the Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan or saw an uptick in the number of citizens willing to leave.
One GOP aide suggested the number of Americans whisked out of Afghanistan may yet be higher and be closer to 1,000, including those who left via privately funded organizations
Emphasizing that the estimate was a snapshot in time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers – two weeks after the last US plane left Kabul on Aug. 30, 2021 – there were less than 200 Americans left in Afghanistan who wanted to leave.
According to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee GOP 118-page report, 479 Americans were evacuated from Afghanistan by February 2022.
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