While the U.S. military hasn’t evacuated anyone from Afghanistan in nearly two months, officials are coordinating with veterans’ groups who are still trying to get people out of the Taliban-controlled country.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby noted during Monday’s briefing that Department of Defense leaders are in communication with some of the groups who are still conducting evacuations from Afghanistan on a nearly “continuous basis.”
“These are fairly informal discussions and as far as I understand it,” he explained. “They are happening almost on a continuous basis and we aren’t the only participants here. I mean the State Department is included here, but it’s more sort of continuous communication about information on certain individuals or certain groups of individuals that they can bring to our attention and we can begin to work — continue to work with the Taliban to make arrangements to get them out.”
Kirby did not specify which groups the DoD is coordinating with.
The United States and coalition forces were able to evacuate roughly 120,000 during a noncombatant evacuation operation launched around the time the U.S.-backed Afghan government fell to the Taliban, though thousands of Americans, SIV applicants, and Afghan allies were left behind.
Various groups, many of which are made up of veterans with personal ties to individuals who were left behind, have been working to evacuate them to neighboring countries before they could then be permitted to travel to the U.S.
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Task Force Argo is one such group, made up of DoD personnel, active-duty service members and veterans, special operators, and intelligence analysts. Their goal is to “bring home from Afghanistan every U.S. citizen and legal permanent resident, the immediate and extended family members of U.S. citizens and LPRs, and our Afghan allies and partners.”
The group has evacuated roughly 1,800 people since the military withdrew at the end of August and they say they “will not rest” until everyone is out, though former JSOC Ground Force Commander Jesse Jensen, a member, previously told the Washington Examiner that their efforts are “not sustainable.”
