CIA, US Military Conducting Extraction Operations To Bring Trapped Americans To Kabul Airport

U.S. military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are carrying out secret extraction operations in Afghanistan to get stranded Americans into Kabul airport as the White House races to evacuate all U.S. citizens and Afghans who aided U.S. forces out of the country by Aug. 31. The Taliban has warned that it will not extend this deadline.

U.S. officials and other authorities revealed that the CIA has launched secret operations over the past few days within and outside of the capital, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. military helicopters have been pressed in for the rescue and evacuation of stranded Americans and the CIA is said to be in control of operations.

Operations to rescue stranded Americans and Afghans who’ve helped U.S. forces during their stay in the country are considered dangerous due to the ongoing threat of retribution from the Taliban who are now in control of most major cities across Afghanistan, including the capital of Kabul.

NATO troops are known to have conducted such opertions earlier.

The Pentagon said it continues to cooperate with the Taliban to ensure safe passage of U.S. citizens into the airport. It is not clear how many Americans are stranded outside Kabul. There are also thousands of vulnerable Afghans including translators and others who worked with the U.S. military who have been stranded by the badly planned pullout.

President Joe Biden reportedly sent CIA Director William Burns to negotiate terms with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar on Monday, a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The meetup between Baradar and Burns is the highest level contact yet between officials from both sides since Kabul was seized earlier this month.

A spokesman for the Taliban said he is unaware if Burns and Baradar have met, and earlier Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid noted that the militant group rejected an extension for the evacuation deadline of Aug. 31.

As of Tuesday evening, the number of people reported to have been evacuated out of Afghanistan reached 70,700. However, the exact number of stranded individuals who have yet to get into the Kabul airport remains unknown to the public. Several U.S. officials believe there are still thousands of Americans who remain in different parts of Afghanistan and need evacuation, while tens of thousands of Afghans who are eligible for special visas have yet to get their visas processed, The New York Times reported.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the White House believes there are around 1,500 American citizens still in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported. Blinken said the administration has been "aggressively reaching out" to the remaining Americans "to determine whether they still want to leave."

Biden said last week that the evacuations in Afghanistan will be “hard and painful.” He insisted that the goal is to accomplish all necessary evacuations by the end of the month.

However, refugee experts pointed out that at least 300,000 Afghans are potentially in danger due to their cooperation with U.S. troops over the last two decades. Some senior U.S. officials also doubt evacuations will be completed before the month ends as the numbers change by the day, considering that some Americans in Afghanistan did not provide their location before the Taliban seized Kabul.