Afghanistan: White House aide clarifies comments to insist that all Americans will be brought back home

Jake Sullivan says US will achieve goal with ‘incredible work of our troops and diplomats’

Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser has clarified his comments to insist that all Americans will be brought home from Afghanistan.

Jake Sullivan took to Twitter to confirm that the Biden administration is committed to achieving that goal before US troops leave the country at the end of the month.

“When I was asked about whether we’re going to get all Americans out of Afghanistan I said ‘that’s what we intend to do’ and that’s exactly what we’ll do, and are accomplishing right now with HKIA [Hamid Karzai International Airport] re-opened and operational, thanks to the incredible work of our troops and diplomats,” tweeted Mr Sullivan on Tuesday evening.

Earlier at a White House Press conference he had refused to confirm if US troops would remain at Kabul’s international airport beyond the end of August if all Americans had not yet been evacuated from the country.

“I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals, I’m going to focus on the task in hand, which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible and we will take that day by day,” he told reporters.

Mr Sullivan faced reporters a day after chaotic scenes unfolded at Kabul airport, with thousands of Afghans trying desperately to climb onto flights leaving the country to escape the Taliban.

The hardline Islamist group swept into Kabul over the weekend to take control of the country as US forces prepared for their final withdrawal after 20 years in Afghanistan.

The Biden administration has come under withering criticism for the debacle, which saw at least seven people die at the airport, but has defended the withdrawal as a necessary action.

Mr Sullivan said that the US was putting 300 Americans and allies on every cargo plane leaving Kabul and insisted, “We are getting people through the gate.”

He said the Taliban had given assurances that the US would be allowed to get its people out fo the country safely via the airport.

And Mr Sullivan insisted that the US had told Americans in Afghanistan for weeks that they should leave the country.

“We communicated with American citizens for weeks telling them to get out of the country ... many chose to stay right until the end,” he added.

He was also asked whether the country’s former president, Ashraf Ghani, would be granted asylum in the US after fleeing the country and leaving it to Taliban forces.

“I’m not familiar with any such requests and I’m not going to get into hypotheticals,” he said.

Mr Sullivan also addressed US military equipment now being in the hands of the Taliban.

“Certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and obviously we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport,” he said.