[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – The United States is preparing commercial jets to help transport people once evacuated from Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
The 18 planes from United, American Airlines, Delta and Hawaiian Airlines would not fly to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
Instead, he said they would be used for the “movement of passengers from temporary shelters and interim staging bases.”
This will allow military planes to focus on operations inside and outside Kabul, Kirby added.
This would only be the third time that the Civil Reserve Air Fleet has been activated. The first time was during the Gulf War in 1990, then during the invasion of Iraq in 2002.
The first took place in support of Operations Desert Shield / Storm between August 1990 and May 1991, and the second was for Operation Iraqi Freedom between February 2002 and June 2003.
The US Department of Transportation has declared the program, established in 1951, to be voluntary and, in return, participating carriers have preference for commercial peacetime freight and passenger transport for the Department of Defense.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the activation of the initial phase of the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet program amid chaotic scenes in Kabul where thousands continue to try to escape their lives under the Taliban regime.
The United States has displaced 17,000 people out of Afghanistan since last Sunday, when the Taliban took control of Kabul, the Pentagon announced on Saturday.
But thousands of people are still waiting to be evacuated from the city’s airport as the security situation in and around the area continues to deteriorate, with reports of shoving and gunfire. The UK government said on Sunday that seven people had died after being run over in crowds around the airport.
Download the NBC News app for the latest news and politics
Security in the Afghan capital, where about 5,800 American soldiers protect the airport.
President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to bring Americans home and help Afghans who had aided American forces in the country and others who may be at risk in what he called “one of the largest and most difficult airlifts in history “.
But time is running out before his August 31 deadline to withdraw most of the remaining U.S. troops, and he has made no commitment to extend it.
Courtney Kube reported from Washington and Yuliya Talmazan from London.
[ad_2]
Source link