Live updates: US military sending 1,000 more troops to safeguard Kabul airport; Biden to address nation

Associated Press, CNN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military is sending another battalion of about 1,000 troops to help safeguard the Kabul airport, where American forces killed two armed people during increasingly chaotic evacuation efforts as the Taliban take control of Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby briefed reporters Monday on the additional deployments aimed at bringing a semblance of order to the evacuations.

Separately, one of America’s top military commanders has met face-to-face with senior leaders of the Taliban, urging the longtime U.S. enemy not to interfere with the massive airport evacuation as the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will return to the White House Monday to address the nation on the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan, a day after the Taliban took control of the country.

The White House says Biden will travel back to Washington from the Camp David presidential retreat to speak at 3:45 Eastern on Monday afternoon from the East Room. It will be his first public remarks on the Afghanistan situation in nearly a week.

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Senior U.S. military officials say the chaos at the Kabul airport this morning left seven people dead, including some who fell from a departing American military transport jet.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss ongoing operations.

Afghans rushed onto the tarmac of the capital’s airport on Monday as thousands tried to flee the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed. Some clung to the side of a U.S. military plane before takeoff, in a widely shared video that captured the sense of desperation as America’s 20-year war comes to a chaotic end.

Another video showed the Afghans falling as the plane gained altitude over Kabul.

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WASHNGTON — A U.S. defense official says the head of Central Command has met face-to-face with senior Taliban leaders to urge their fighters not to interfere with the U.S. military’s evacuation operations at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

The official said that in the meeting on Sunday in Doha, Qatar, Gen. Frank McKenzie won Taliban agreement to establish a “deconfliction mechanism” — an arrangement by which evacuation operations at the airport can continue without interference by the new rulers of the country.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks not yet announced publicly. The official said McKenzie urged the Taliban not to interfere with the evacuation and said the U.S. military would respond forcefully to defend the airport if necessary.

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WASHINGTON — U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the failure of the Afghan military is to blame for the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan.

Sullivan said Monday that President Joe Biden didn’t want the U.S. to enter a “third decade of conflict” in Afghanistan and believed it was time for the Afghan army to defend the country two decades after billions of dollars of investment and training by the U.S.

But Sullivan said, “we could not give them the will and ultimately they decided that they would not fight for Kabul.”

He added that the “worst-case scenario” for the U.S. would be to send thousands of troops to fight in a civil war when the Afghan army “wasn’t prepared to fight itself.”

Sullivan says Biden faced “bad choices” on the subject. The president ultimately opted to bring U.S. troops home and leave the Afghans to fight for themselves.

He says “it’s heartbreaking” to see what’s happening in Kabul but that Biden “stands by” his decision.

Sullivan spoke Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today.”

Here’s the latest:

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