Joe Biden
Biden defends departure from ‘forever war,’ praises airlift
A defensive President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the U.S. airlift to extract more than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies from Afghanistan to end a 20-year war an “extraordinary success,” though more than 100 Americans and thousands of others were left behind.
Twenty-four hours after the last American C-17 cargo plane roared off from Kabul, Biden spoke to the nation and vigorously defended his decision to end America’s longest war and withdraw all U.S. troops ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline.
“I was not going to extend this forever war,” Biden declared from the White House. “And I was not going to extend a forever exit.”
Biden has faced tough questions about the way the U.S. went about leaving Afghanistan — a chaotic evacuation with spasms of violence, including a suicide bombing last week that killed 13 American service members and 169 Afghans.
Read: War is over but not Biden’s Afghanistan challenges
He is under heavy criticism, particularly from Republicans, for his handling of the evacuation. But he said it was inevitable that the final departure from two decades of war, first negotiated with the Taliban for May 1 by former President Donald Trump, would have been difficult, with likely violence, no matter when it was planned and conducted.
“To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, ‘What is the vital national interest?’” Biden said. He added, “I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan.”
Asked after the speech about Biden sounding angry at some criticism, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president had simply offered his “forceful assessment.”
Biden scoffed at Republicans — and some Democrats — who contend the U.S. would have been better served maintaining a small military footprint in Afghanistan. Before Thursday’s attack, the U.S. military had not suffered a combat casualty since February 2020 — around the time the Trump administration brokered its deal with the Taliban to end the war by May of this year.
Biden said breaking the Trump deal would have restarted a shooting war. He said those who favor remaining at war also fail to recognize the weight of deployment, with a scourge of PTSD, financial struggles, divorce and other problems for U.S. troops.
“When I hear that we could’ve, should’ve continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan at low risk to our service members, at low cost, I don’t think enough people understand how much we’ve asked of the 1% of this country to put that uniform on,” Biden said.
In addition to all the questions at home, Biden is also adjusting to a new relationship with the Taliban, the Islamist militant group the U.S. toppled after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in America, and that is now once again in power in Afghanistan.
Biden has tasked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to coordinate with international partners to hold the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who want to leave in the days ahead.
“We don’t take them by their word alone, but by their actions,” Biden said. “We have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.”
Biden also pushed back against criticism that he fell short of his pledge to get all Americans out of the country ahead of the U.S. military withdrawal. He said many of the Americans left behind are dual citizens, some with deep family roots that are complicating their ability to leave Afghanistan.
Read: Biden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS
“The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” Biden said. “For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out, if they want to come out.”
Biden repeated his argument that ending the Afghanistan war was a crucial step for recalibrating American foreign policy toward growing challenges posed by China and Russia — and counterterrorism concerns that pose a more potent threat to the U.S.
“There’s nothing China or Russia would rather have, want more in this competition, than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan,” he said
In Biden’s view the war could have ended 10 years ago with the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida extremist network planned and executed the 9/11 plot from an Afghanistan sanctuary. Al-Qaida has been vastly diminished, preventing it thus far from again attacking the United States. The president lamented an estimated $2 trillion of taxpayer money that was spent fighting the war.
“What have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?” Biden asked.
Congressional committees, whose interest in the war waned over the years, are expected to hold public hearings on what went wrong in the final months of the U.S. withdrawal.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Tuesday described the Biden administration’s handling of the evacuation as “probably the biggest failure in American government on a military stage in my lifetime” and promised that Republicans would press the White House for answers.
Meanwhile, the Senate met briefly Tuesday, with Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the chamber, to pass by unanimous consent a bill that increases spending for temporary assistance to U.S. citizens and their dependents returning from another country because of illness, war or other crisis. Biden quickly signed the legislation, which raises funding for the program from $1 million to $10 million.
A group of Republican lawmakers gathered on the House floor Tuesday morning and participated in a moment of silence for the 13 service members who were killed in the suicide bomber attack.
Read: Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths
They also sought a House vote on legislation from Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., which among other things would require the administration to submit a report on how many Americans remain in Afghanistan as well as the number of Afghans who had applied for a category of visas reserved for those employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government.
The GOP lawmakers objected as Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., gaveled the House into adjournment. They then gathered for a press conference to denounce the administration.
For many U.S. commanders and troops who served in Afghanistan, it was a day of mixed emotions.
“All of us are conflicted with feelings of pain and anger, sorrow and sadness, combined with pride and resilience,” said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He commanded troops in Afghanistan earlier in his career. “But one thing I am certain of, for any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine and their families, your service mattered. It was not in vain.”
War is over but not Biden’s Afghanistan challenges
With the final stream of U.S. cargo planes soaring over the peaks of the Hindu Kush, President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise to end America’s longest war, one it could not win.
But as the war ended with a chaotic, bloody evacuation that left stranded hundreds of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghans who had aided the American war effort, the president kept notably out of sight. He left it to a senior military commander and his secretary of state to tell Americans about the final moments of a conflict that ended in resounding American defeat.
Biden, for his part, issued a written statement praising U.S. troops who oversaw the airlift of more than 120,000 Afghans, U.S. citizens and allies for their “unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve.” He said he would have more to say on Tuesday.
“Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended,” Biden said in his statement.
The muted reaction was informed by a tough reality: The war may be over, but Biden’s Afghanistan problem is not.
Read:Biden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS
The president still faces daunting challenges born of the hasty end of the war, including how to help extract as many as 200 Americans and thousands of Afghans left behind, the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees who were able to flee, and coming congressional scrutiny over how, despite increasingly fraught warnings, the administration was caught flat-footed by the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
Through the withdrawal, Biden showed himself willing to endure what his advisers hope will be short-term pain for resisting bipartisan and international pressure to extend his Aug. 31 deadline for ending the American military evacuation effort. For more than a decade, Biden has believed in the futility of the conflict and maintained that the routing of Afghanistan’s military by the Taliban was a delayed, if unwelcome, vindication.
Turning the page on Afghanistan is a crucial foreign policy objective for Biden, who repeatedly has made the case for redirecting American attention toward growing challenges posed by adversaries China and Russia — and for shifting America’s counterterrorism focus to areas with more potent threats.
But in his effort to end the war and reset U.S. priorities, Biden may have also undercut a central premise of his 2020 White House campaign: a promise to usher in an era of greater empathy and collaboration with allies in America’s foreign policy after four years of Trump’s “America first” approach.
“For someone who made his name as an empathetic leader, he’s appeared ... as quite rational, even cold-hearted, in his pursuit of this goal” to end the war, said Jason Lyall, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College.
Allies — including lawmakers from Britain, France, and Germany — chafed at Biden’s insistence on holding fast to the Aug. 31 deadline as they struggled to evacuate their citizens and Afghan allies. Armin Laschet, the leading conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, called it the “biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.”
At home, Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of the evacuation, and even Democrats have backed inquiries into what went wrong in the fateful last months of the occupation.
And at the same time, the massive suicide bombing in the final days of the evacuation that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 180 Afghans is raising fresh concern about Afghanistan again becoming a breeding ground for terrorists.
Biden blamed his predecessor, Donald Trump, for tying his hands. He repeatedly reminded people that he had inherited an agreement the Republican administration made with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by May of this year. Reneging on the deal, Biden argued, would have put U.S. troops — who before Thursday had gone since February 2020 without a combat fatality in the war — in the Taliban’s crosshairs once again.
The president’s advisers also complained that the now-ousted Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani was resistant to finding a political compromise with the Taliban and made strategic blunders by spreading largely feckless Afghan security forces too thinly.
Read: Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths
Republicans — and even a few Democratic allies — have offered withering criticism of the administration’s handling of the evacuation, an issue that the GOP is looking to weaponize against Biden.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Monday the withdrawal date set by Biden was a political one designed for a photo op. Absent from McCarthy’s criticism was any mention that it was Trump’s White House that had brokered the deal to end the war.
“There was a moment in time that had this president listened to his military, there would still be terrorist prisoners inside Bagram, we would be getting every single American out, the military would not have left before the Americans,” McCarthy said. “Every crisis he has faced so far in this administration he has failed.”
It remains to be seen if criticism of Biden’s handling of Afghanistan will resonate with voters. An Associated Press-NORC poll conducted earlier in August found that about 6 in 10 Americans said the war there was not worth fighting.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 27-28 found about 6 in 10 Americans disapproving of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan. That poll also found most said the U.S. should remain in Afghanistan until all Americans and Afghans who aided the U.S. had been evacuated. The poll did not ask whether people approved of withdrawal more generally.
After backing the 2001 U.S. invasion, Biden became a skeptic of U.S. nation-building efforts and harbored deep doubts about the Afghan government’s ability to develop the capacity to sustain itself.
His opposition to the 2009 “surge” of U.S. troop deployed to Afghanistan when he was vice president put him on the losing side of conflicts with the defense establishment and within the Obama administration. Biden, in recent weeks, told aides that he viewed his counsel against expanding the American involvement more than a decade ago to be one of his proudest moments in public life.
But his tendency to speak in absolutes didn’t help his cause.
In July, Biden pushed back at concerns that a Taliban takeover of the country would be inevitable. Weeks later, the group toppled the Afghan government.
The president also expressed confidence that Americans would not see images reminiscent of the U.S. evacuation from Vietnam at the end of that war in 1975, when photos of helicopters evacuating people from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon became gripping symbols of U.S. failure.
Read: Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
In fact, they saw images of desperate Afghans swarming the Kabul airport — at least one falling to his death after clinging to a departing U.S. aircraft.
Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an Aug. 18 interview that the U.S. military objective in Afghanistan was to get “everyone” out, including Americans and Afghan allies and their families. He pledged American forces would stay until they accomplished that mission.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that there was “a small number of Americans, under 200, likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and still want to leave.”
The swift military evacuation now yields to a murkier diplomatic operation to press the Taliban to allow Americans and their allies to depart peacefully by other means.
Biden believes he has some leverage over the Taliban, former U.S. enemies turned into pragmatic partners, as Afghanistan faces an economic crisis with the freezing of most foreign aid. But U.S. commanders say the situation in Afghanistan could become even more chaotic in the coming weeks and months.
Biden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS
President Joe Biden vowed Saturday to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. He warned another attack was “highly likely” and the State Department called the threat “specific” and “credible.”
The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of U.S. forces at the airport, now numbering fewer than 4,000, had begun their final withdrawal ahead of Biden’s deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday.
After getting briefed on a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday, Biden said the extremists can expect more.
“This strike was not the last,” Biden said in a statement. “We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay.” He paid tribute to the “bravery and selflessness” of the American troops executing the hurried airlift of tens of thousands from Kabul airport, including the 13 U.S. service members who were killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing at an airport gate.
Read:Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths
The evacuation proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another IS attack. The State Department issued a new security alert early Sunday morning Kabul time instructing people to leave the airport area immediately “due to a specific, credible threat.”
“Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” Biden said, adding that he has instructed them to take all possible measures to protect their troops, who are securing the airport and helping bring onto the airfield Americans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule.
The remains of the 13 American troops were on their way to the United States, the Pentagon said. Their voyage marked a painful moment in a nearly 20-year American war that cost more than 2,400 U.S. military lives and is ending with the return to power of a Taliban movement that was ousted when U.S. forces invaded in October 2001.
The remains of troops killed in action overseas are usually flown back to the U.S. via Dover Air Base in Delaware, where fallen troops’ return to U.S. soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the “dignified transfer.”
The White House on Saturday did not say if Biden would travel to Dover for the troops’ return. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said shortly after the attack that the president “would do everything he can to honor the sacrifice and the service” of those killed.
The Pentagon released the names of those killed — 11 Marines, one Navy sailor and one Army soldier. Twelve of them were in the 20s; some were born in 2001, the year America’s longest war began. The oldest was 31.
They were the first U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban in which the militant group halted attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove all troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden announced in April that the 2,500 to 3,000 troops who remained would be out by September, ending what he has called America’s forever war.
Read:Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
With Biden’s approval, the Pentagon this month sent thousands of additional troops to the Kabul airport to provide security and to facilitate the State Department’s chaotic effort to evacuate thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who had helped the United States during the war. The evacuation was marred by confusion and chaos as the U.S. government was caught by surprise when the Afghan army collapsed and the Taliban swept to power Aug. 15.
About 5,400 Americans have been evacuated from the country so far, including 300 in the last day. The State Department believes about 350 more want out; it said there are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but who have not told the State Department of their plans to leave the country, or who have said they plan to remain.
Untold numbers of vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are likely to be left behind. Biden and the leaders of other Western countries have said they would try to work with the Taliban to allow Afghans who had worked with them to leave after the U.S.-led evacuation ends.
The Pentagon said that about 6,800 people, mostly Afghans, were flown out in the 24 hours that ended Saturday morning, bringing to 113,500 the total number of people of all nationalities evacuated since the hurried exit was begun Aug. 14.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military force at the Kabul airport, which peaked at about 5,800, had begun its final withdrawal. The number had dropped below 4,000 on Saturday, according to a U.S. official who discussed details not yet publicly released on condition of anonymity. Kirby said that for security reasons the Pentagon will not provide a day-by-day description of the final stages of the military’s withdrawal, which includes flying home troops as well as equipment.
The Pentagon said an airstrike early Saturday local time in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, killed two IS “planners and facilitators.”
“They have lost some capability to plan and to conduct missions, but make no mistake, nobody’s writing this off and saying, ‘Well, we got them. We don’t have to worry about ISIS-K anymore.’ Not the case,” Kirby told a news conference, using an abbreviation for the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan.
Read: Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
Biden also faces the problem over the longer term of containing an array of potential extremist threats based in Afghanistan, which will be harder with fewer U.S. intelligence assets and no military presence in the nation. Critics say Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves the door open for al-Qaida, the Islamic State and other extremist groups to grow and potentially threaten the United States. It was al-Qaida’s use of Afghanistan as a base, with the Taliban’s acquiescence, that prompted the United States to invade the country in October 2001, beginning the longest war in U.S. history.
Saturday’s drone mission came less than two days after the Kabul attack and a public pledge by Biden that he would make IS “pay” for their suicide bomb attack. Officials made no claim that the two individuals killed played a direct role in Thursday’s Kabul airport attack.
Kirby declined to release the names and nationalities of the two killed. He said one other person was wounded in the strike. The speed with which the U.S. retaliated reflected its close monitoring of IS and years of experience in targeting extremists in remote parts of the world. But it also shows the limits of U.S. power to eliminate the threat from extremists, who some believe will have more freedom of movement in Afghanistan now that the Taliban is in power.
Kirby said the U.S. had “the ability and the means to carry over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities and we’re going to defend ourselves,” referring to the military’s use of aircraft based in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere to carry out strikes in Afghanistan.
Evacuation flights resume in Kabul after deadly bombings
Evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed with new urgency on Friday, a day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover. The U.S. says further attempted attacks are expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America’s longest war.
Kabul residents said several flights took off Friday morning, while footage shared by a local Tolo TV correspondent showed the anxious crowd outside the airport as large as ever.
Read: Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths
Thursday’s bombings near Kabul’s international airport killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said, in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since August 2011. In an emotional speech, President Joe Biden blamed the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, far more radical than the Taliban militants who seized power less than two weeks ago.
“We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on,” Biden said. But despite intense pressure to extend Tuesday’s deadline, he has cited the threat of terrorist attacks as a reason to keep to his plan.
The Taliban, back in control of Afghanistan two decades after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, insist on the deadline. The Trump administration in February 2020 struck an agreement with the Taliban that called for it to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for the removal of all U.S. troops and contractors by May; Biden announced in April he would have them out by September.
While the U.S. on Thursday said more than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated from Kabul, as many as 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Afghans are struggling to leave in one of history’s largest airlifts. Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief overseeing the evacuation, on Thursday said about 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield.
Read:Kabul airport attack kills 60 Afghans, 13 US troops
The scenes at the airport, with people standing knee-deep in sewage and families thrusting documents and even young children toward U.S. troops behind razor wire, have horrified many around the world as far-flung efforts continue to help people escape.
But those chances are fading fast for many. Some U.S. allies have said they are ending evacuation efforts, in part to give the U.S. time to wrap up its evacuation work before getting 5,000 of its troops out by Tuesday.
Britain said Friday its evacuations from Afghanistan will end within hours, and the main British processing center for eligible Afghans has been closed. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News there would be “eight or nine” evacuation flights on Friday, and they will be the last. British troops will leave over the next few days.
The Spanish government said it has ended its evacuation operation.
Untold thousands of Afghans, especially ones who had worked with the U.S. and other Western countries, are now in hiding from the Taliban, fearing retaliation despite the group’s offer of full amnesty. The militant group has claimed it has become more moderate since its harsh rule from 1996 to 2001, when it largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music and held public executions.
Read: Europe gives dire warning as Kabul evacuation deadline looms
But Afghans in Kabul and elsewhere have reported that some Taliban members are barring girls from attending school and going door to door in search of people who had worked with Western forces.
No one knows how effective the Taliban will be at combating the Sunni extremists of IS, who have links to the group’s more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq and have carried out a series of brutal attacks in Afghanistan, mainly targeting its Shiite Muslim minority.
Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths
President Joe Biden is vowing to complete the evacuation of American citizens and others from Afghanistan despite the deadly suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport. He promised to avenge the deaths of 13 U.S. service members killed in the attack, declaring to the extremists responsible: “We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Speaking with emotion from the White House, Biden said the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate was to blame for the Thursday attacks that killed the Americans and many more Afghan civilians. He said there was no evidence they colluded with the Taliban, who now control the country.
He asked for a moment of silence to honor the service members, bowing his head, and ordered U.S. flags to half-staff across the country.
As for the bombers and gunmen involved, he said, “We have some reason to believe we know who they are ... not certain.” He said he had instructed military commanders to develop plans to strike IS “assets, leadership and facilities.”
Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief, said more attempted attacks were expected.
Read:Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
The IS affiliate in Afghanistan has carried out many attacks on civilian targets in the country in recent years. It is far more radical than the Taliban, who seized power less than two weeks ago. The most heralded American attack on the group came in April 2017 when the U.S. dropped the largest conventional bomb in its arsenal on an IS cave and tunnel complex. The group more recently is believed to have concentrated in urban areas, which could complicate U.S. efforts to target them without harming civilians.
“We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place of our choosing,” Biden said. “These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”
Biden said U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan had told him it is important to complete the evacuation mission. “And we will,” he said. “We will not be deterred by terrorists.”
Indeed, Gen. McKenzie, who is overseeing the evacuation operation from his Florida headquarters, told a Pentagon news conference shortly before Biden spoke, “Let me be clear, while we are saddened by the loss of life, both U.S. and Afghan, we are continuing to execute the mission,.” He said there were about 5,000 evacuees on the airfield Thursday awaiting flights.
As many as 1,000 Americans and many more Afghans are still struggling to get out of Kabul.
McKenzie said 12 U.S. service members had been killed and 15 were wounded. Later, his spokesman, Capt. William Urban, said the toll had risen to 13 dead and 18 wounded. Urban said the wounded were being evacuated from Afghanistan aboard Air Force C-17 transport planes equipped with surgical units.
The Marine Corps said 10 Marines were among those killed. Central Command did not identify the dead by service. It was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since August 2011, when a helicopter was shot down by an insurgent armed with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 30 American troops and eight Afghans.
In somber, sometimes halting remarks, Biden praised U.S. forces and asked for the moment of silence. Asked later about further actions, press secretary Jen Psaki said that personal calls to families would wait for notification of next of kin and that Biden might travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware when the remains of the fallen service members are returned.
Read: Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
They were the first U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban that called for the militant group to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove all American troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden announced in April that he would have all forces out by September.
Thursday’s attacks, came 12 days into the rushed evacuation and five days before its scheduled completion. Some Republicans and others are arguing to extend the evacuation beyond next Tuesday’s deadline.
The administration has been widely blamed for a chaotic and deadly evacuation that began in earnest only after the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Taliban’s takeover of the country. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated so far, Afghans, Americans and others.
Thursday’s attack was sure to intensify political pressure from all sides on Biden, who already was under heavy criticism for not beginning the pullout earlier. He had announced in April that he was ending the U.S. war and would have all forces out by September.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California called for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to bring the chamber back into session to consider legislation that would prohibit the U.S. withdrawal until all Americans are out. Pelosi’s office dismissed such suggestions as “empty stunts.”
After the suicide bomber’s attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate, a number of ISIS gunmen opened fire on civilians and military forces, he said. There also was an attack at or near the Baron Hotel near that gate, he said.
“We thought this would happen sooner or later,” McKenzie said, adding that U.S. military commanders were working with Taliban commanders to prevent further attacks.
As details of the day’s attack emerged, the White House rescheduled Biden’s first in-person meeting with Israel’s new prime minister on Thursday and canceled a video conference with governors about resettling Afghan refugees arriving in the United States.
Read: Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
A number of U.S. allies said they were ending their evacuation efforts in Kabul, at least in part to give the U.S. the time it needs to wrap up its evacuation operations before getting 5,000 of its troops out by Tuesday.
Despite intense pressure to extend the deadline, Biden has repeatedly cited the threat of terrorist attacks against civilians and U.S. service members as a reason to keep to his plan.
In an interview with ABC News, Ross Wilson, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said, “There are safe ways to get to” the airport for those Americans who still want to leave. He added that “there undoubtedly will be” some at-risk Afghans who will not get out before Biden’s deadline.
The airlift continued Thursday, though the number of evacuees fell for a second day as the terror attack and further threats kept people from the airport and as other countries began shutting down their efforts. From 3 a.m. to 3 p.m., Washington time, about 7,500 people were evacuated, a White House official said. Fourteen U..S. military flights carried about 5,100, and 39 coalition flights carried 2,400.
The total compared to 19,000 in one 24-hour period toward the start of the week.
US says 1,500 Americans may still await Kabul evacuation
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan, a figure that suggests the U.S. may accomplish its highest priority for the Kabul airlift — rescuing U.S. citizens — ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline despite growing concerns of terror threats targeting the airport.
Untold thousands of at-risk Afghans, however, still are struggling to get into the Kabul airport, while many thousands of other Afghans already have been flown to safety in 12 days of round-the-clock flights.
On Wednesday, several of the Americans working phones and pulling strings to get out former Afghan colleagues, women’s advocates, journalists and other vulnerable Afghans said they have seen little concrete U.S. action so far to get those Afghans past Taliban checkpoints and through U.S-controlled airport gates to promised evacuation flights.
“It’s 100% up to the Afghans to take these risks and try to fight their way out,” said Sunil Varghese, policy director with the International Refugee Assistance Project.
Read: Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
Blinken, echoing Biden’s earlier declarations during the now 12-day-old evacuation, emphasized at a State Department briefing that “ evacuating Americans is our top priority. ”
He added, “We’re also committed to getting out as many Afghans at-risk as we can before the 31st,” when Biden plans to pull out the last of thousands of American troops.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security alert warning American citizens away from three specific airport gates, but gave no further explanation. Senior U.S. officials said the warning was related to ongoing and specific threats involving the Islamic State and potential vehicle bombs, which have set U.S. officials on edge in the final days of the American drawdown. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing military operations.
Blinken said the State Department estimates there were about 6,000 Americans wanting to leave Afghanistan when the airlift began Aug. 14, as the Taliban took the capital after a stunning military conquest. About 4,500 Americans have been evacuated so far, Blinken said, and among the rest “some are understandably very scared.”
The 6,000 figure is the first firm estimate by the State Department of how many Americans were seeking to get out. U.S. officials early in the evacuation estimated as many as 15,000, including dual citizens, lived in Afghanistan. The figure does not include U.S. Green Card holders.
About 500 Americans have been contacted with instructions on when and how to get to the chaotic Kabul airport to catch evacuation flights.
In addition, 1,000 or perhaps fewer are being contacted to determine whether they still want to leave. Blinken said some of these may already have left the country, some may want to remain and some may not actually be American citizens.
“We are providing opportunity,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of those Afghans, who include dual Afghan-American citizens. “We are finding ways to get them to the airport and evacuate them, but it is also their personal decision on whether they want to depart.”
On a lighter note, the U.S. military said an Afghan baby girl born on a C-17 military aircraft during the massive evacuation will carry that experience with her. Her parents named her after the plane’s call sign: Reach.
She was born Saturday, and members of the 86th Medical Group helped in her birth aboard the plane that had taken the family from Kabul to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Two other babies whose parents were evacuating from Afghanistan have been born over the past week at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the U.S. military hospital in Germany.
In Washington on Wednesday, Blinken emphasized that the U.S. and other governments plan to continue assisting Afghans and Americans who want to leave after next Tuesday, the deadline for Biden’s planned end to the evacuation and the two-decade U.S. military role in Afghanistan. “That effort will continue, every day, past Aug. 31,” he said.
Read:Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
Biden has cited what he U.S. says are rising security threats to U.S. forces, including from an affiliate of the Islamic State terror group, for his determination to stick with Tuesday’s withdrawal deadline. Germany has said Western officials are particularly concerned that suicide bombers may slip into the crowds surrounding the airport.
The U.S. Embassy has already been evacuated; staff are operating from the Kabul airport and the last are to leave by Tuesday.
Biden said this week he had asked his national security team for contingency plans in case he decides to extend the deadline. Taliban leaders who took control of Afghanistan this month say they will not tolerate any extensions to the Tuesday deadline. But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted that “people with legal documents” will still be able to fly out via commercial flights after Tuesday.
U.S. troops are anchoring a multinational evacuation from the airport. The White House says the airlift overall has flown out 82,300 Afghans, Americans and others on a mix of U.S., international and private flights.
The withdrawal comes under a 2020 deal negotiated by President Donald Trump with the Taliban.
Refugee groups are describing a different picture than the Biden administration is when it comes to many Afghans: a disorganized, barely-there U.S. evacuation effort that leaves the most desperate to risk beatings and death at Taliban checkpoints. Some Afghans are reported being turned away from the Kabul airport by American forces controlling the gates, despite having approval for flights.
U.S. military and diplomatic officials appear to still be compiling lists of eligible Afghans but have yet to disclose how many may be evacuated — and how — private Americans and American organizations said.
“We still have 1,200 Afghans with visas that are outside the airport and haven’t got in,” said James Miervaldis with No One Left Behind, one of dozens of veterans groups working to get out Afghans who worked with the U.S. military during America’s nearly 20 years of combat in the country.. “We’re waiting to hear from the US. government and haven’t heard yet.”
Marina LeGree of Ascend, a U.S.-based nonprofit that worked to develop fitness and leadership in Afghan girls and young women, described getting calls from U.S. officials telling the group’s interns and staffers to go to the airport for evacuation flights, only to have them turned away by American forces keeping gates closed against the throngs outside.
One Afghan intern who went to the airport with her family saw a person killed in front of them, and a female colleague was burned by a caustic agent fired at the crowd, LeGree said.
“It’s heartbreaking to see my government fail so badly,” said LeGree, the group’s American director, who is in Italy but in close contact with those in Kabul.
Read: Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
U.S.-based organizations, speaking on background to discuss sensitive matters, cite accounts from witnesses on the ground as saying some American citizens, and family members of Afghans with green cards, still were having trouble pushing and talking their way into the Kabul airport for flights.
Kirby said the U.S. military will preserve as much airlift capacity at the airport as possible in the coming days, ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. The military will “continue to evacuate needed populations all the way to the end,” he said. But he added that in the final days and hours there will have to be a balance in getting out U.S. troops and their equipment as well as evacuees.
Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the deputy director of regional operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had conducted another helicopter mission beyond the perimeter of the airport to pick up people seeking to evacuate.
The number of U.S. troops at the airport has dropped by about 400, to 5,400, but the final withdrawal has not begun, Kirby said Wednesday.
Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism
U.S. President Joe Biden declared Tuesday he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline for completing a risky airlift of Americans, endangered Afghans and others seeking to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The decision defies allied leaders who want to give the evacuation more time and opens Biden to criticism that he caved to Taliban deadline demands.
“Every day we’re on the ground is another day that we know ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both us and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said at the White House, referring to the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, which is known for staging suicide attacks on civilians.
He said the Taliban are cooperating and security is holding despite a number of violent incidents. “But it’s a tenuous situation,” he said, adding, “We run a serious risk of it breaking down as time goes on.”
The United States in recent days has ramped up its airlift amid new reports of rights abuses that fuel concern about the fate of thousands of people who fear retribution from the Taliban and are trying to flee the country. The Pentagon said 21,600 people had been evacuated in the 24 hours that ended Tuesday morning, and Biden said an additional 12,000 had been flown out in the 12 hours that followed. Those include flights operated by the U.S. military as well as other charter flights.
Read: Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
Biden said he had asked the Pentagon and State Department for evacuation contingency plans that would adjust the timeline for full withdrawal should that become necessary.
Pentagon officials expressed confidence the airlift, which started on Aug. 14, can get all Americans out by next Tuesday, the deadline Biden had set long before the Taliban completed their takeover. But unknown thousands of other foreign nationals remain in Afghanistan and are struggling to get out.
The Taliban, who have wrested control of the country back nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks, insist the airlift must end on Aug. 31. Any decision by Biden to stay longer could reignite a war between the militants and the approximately 5,800 American troops who are executing the airlift at Kabul airport.
In Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference the U.S. must stick to its self-imposed deadline, saying “after that we won’t let Afghans be taken out” on evacuation flights. He also said the Taliban would bar Afghans from accessing roads to the airport, while allowing foreigners to pass in order to prevent large crowds from massing.
At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said Aug. 31 leaves enough time to get all Americans out, but he was less specific about completing the evacuation of all at-risk Afghans. He said about 4,000 American passport holders and their family members had been evacuated from Kabul as of Tuesday.
“We expect that number to grow in coming days,” Kirby said.
With the full U.S. withdrawal looming, the Pentagon said several hundred U.S. troops have been withdrawn because they are no longer needed to complete the evacuation mission. Kirby said these are headquarters staff, maintenance personnel and others. “It will have no impact on the mission at hand,” he said.
It’s unclear how many Americans who want to leave are still in the country, but their status is a hot political topic for Biden. Some Republicans bristled Tuesday at the U.S. seeming to comply with a Taliban edict. “We need to have the top priority to tell the Taliban that we’re going to get all of our people out, regardless of what timeline was initially set,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
And Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters Monday that “it was hard for me to imagine” wrapping up the airlifts by the end of the month.
One of the main refugee groups resettling Afghan evacuees in the United States said many people, including some American citizens, still were finding it impossible to get past Taliban checkpoints and crushing throngs outside the airport.
Read:Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
“The United States cannot pat itself on the back for a job half-done,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
Biden decided in April that he was ending the U.S. war, which began in October 2001. Former President Donald Trump had earlier agreed in negotiations with the Taliban to end the war in May.
However, Biden waited until the Taliban had swept to power this month, following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government and its army, to begin executing an airlift.
Tragic scenes at the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, and another seven died Sunday in a panicked stampede. An Afghan solider was killed Monday in a gunfight.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Group of Seven nations will not recognize a Taliban government unless it guarantees people can leave the country if they wish, both before and after the August deadline. A day earlier, the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, met with a top Taliban leader in Kabul. The extraordinary meeting reflected the gravity of the crisis and America’s need to coordinate with a Taliban group it has accused of gross human rights abuses.
For now, the U.S. military coordinates all air traffic in and out of the Kabul airport, but the Taliban will take over there after the U.S. pullout.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official said Burns, the CIA director, met with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — an extraordinary moment for the U.S. spy agency, which for two decades targeted the Taliban in paramilitary operations. It was not clear what exactly they discussed.
The CIA partnered with Pakistani forces to arrest Baradar in 2010, and he spent eight years in a Pakistani prison before the Trump administration persuaded Pakistan to release him in 2018 ahead of U.S. peace talks with the Taliban.
Mujahid, meanwhile, pushed back on the idea that Afghans need to flee, arguing that the Taliban have brought peace and security to the country. He said the main problem was the chaos at the airport, and he accused the U.S. of luring away engineers, doctors and other professionals on which the country relies.
Read:Defiant Biden is face of chaotic Afghan evacuation
Earlier, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said she had credible reports of “summary executions” of civilians and former security forces who were no longer fighting, the recruitment of child soldiers and restrictions on the rights of women to move around freely and of girls to go to school.
She did not specify the timing or source of her reports.
It has been difficult to determine how widespread abuses might be and whether they contradict the Taliban’s public statements or reflect disunity in its ranks.
From 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, the Taliban largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.
G-7 grapples with Afghanistan, an afterthought not long ago
Two months ago, the leaders of the world’s seven major industrialized democracies met in summer sunshine on England’s southwest coast. It was a happy occasion: the first in-person summit of the Group of Seven nations in two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and the welcomed appearance of President Joe Biden and his “America is back” message on matters ranging from comity to COVID-19 to climate change.
On Tuesday, those same seven leaders will meet again in virtual format confronted by a resurgence in the pandemic, more dire news on climate change and, most immediately and perhaps importantly, Afghanistan. The country’s burgeoning refugee crisis, the collapse of its government and fears of a resurgence in Afghan-based terrorism have left the G-7 allies scrambling and threaten the unity of the bloc.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host of the June summit in the English resort of Carbis Bay, is now reconvening the leaders for crisis talks on Afghanistan amid widespread unhappiness about Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Complaints have come from Britain, France, Germany and others in the G-7, which includes only one non-NATO member, Japan.
Despite Biden’s April announcement that the U.S. would completely withdraw from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the central Asian nation was almost an afterthought when the G-7 met in June.
Read: Biden says US-led evacuation from Kabul is accelerating
COVID-19, China and climate change dominated the agenda. And expectations for Biden’s impending summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin were at the top of people’s tongues.
The leaders put Afghanistan as number 57 out of 70 points in their final 25-page communique -– behind Ukraine, Belarus and Ethiopia. Afghanistan didn’t even feature in the one-and-a-half page summary of the document. NATO had already signed off on the U.S. withdrawal and all that appeared to be left was the completion of an orderly withdrawal and hopes for a peace deal between the Afghan government and Taliban.
“We call on all Afghan parties to reduce violence and agree on steps that enable the successful implementation of a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire and to engage fully with the peace process. In Afghanistan, a sustainable, inclusive political settlement is the only way to achieve a just and durable peace that benefits all Afghans,” the leaders said, without a hint of urgency.
The leaders said they were determined “to help the people of Afghanistan, including women, young people and minority groups, as they seek to preserve hard-won rights and freedoms,” they said.
But as summer swings into fall, those hopes have been dashed.
Johnson and others, including French President Emmanuel Macron, are pushing Biden to extend his self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces in order to ensure the evacuation of all foreign nationals as well as Afghans who worked for or otherwise supported the American-led NATO operation that vanquished the Taliban in 2001 and has now accepted defeat.
Read:Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers
On the eve of the meeting, the White House said Biden and Johnson had spoken by phone and discussed “the importance of close coordination with allies and partners in managing the current situation and forging a common approach to Afghanistan policy.”
Johnson’s office said the two leaders “agreed to continue working together to ensure those who are eligible to leave are able to, including after the initial phase of the evacuation has ended.”
Biden administration officials have refused to be pinned down about whether an extension is likely or even possible given the Taliban’s demand that all U.S. forces leave by the Aug. 31 deadline.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she expected questions about the Afghanistan evacuation timeline to be part the G-7 meeting. Psaki would not predict any announcements from the meeting but said the focus would be to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies as quickly as possible.
White House aides have said they think the meeting could grow contentious, as U.S. allies have looked on with disapproval at the tumultuous American drawdown.
Senior British military officers have expressed anger over the U.S. pullout, saying it exposes the hollowness of the trans-Atlantic “special relationship” — a phrase used since World War II to stress the bonds of history, friendship and shared diplomatic interests between London and Washington.
Read:Defiant Biden is face of chaotic Afghan evacuation
And the German government is expressing impatience with the pace of the evacuation effort. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the majority of local staff who worked for his country in Afghanistan haven’t yet been gotten out and called Tuesday’s G-7 meeting “very important” for discussing international access to the Kabul airport beyond Aug. 31.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who has called the U.S. deal with the Taliban that set the deadline a “mistake,” was downbeat about the prospects of an extension to the evacuation effort.
“I think it is unlikely,” he told Sky News. “Not only because of what the Taliban has said but if you look at the public statements of President Biden I think it is unlikely.
“It is definitely worth us all trying, and we will.”
Hurricane Henri closes in as the Northeast braces for impact
Hurricane Henri kept on course early Sunday to crash into a long stretch of northeastern coastline, as millions on New York’s Long Island and in southern New England braced for flooding, toppled trees and extended power outages.
With the center of the storm projected to pass just off the eastern tip of Long Island by midday, hurricane warnings extended from coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island to near the old whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and across the luxurious oceanfront estates of New York’s Hamptons to the summer getaway of Fire Island.
The first thunderstorms bringing what could be up to half a foot (15 centimeters) of rain arrived late Saturday, and flash flooding began in some areas overnight. Bands of heavy rain overwhelmed storm drains and drivers plowed through foot-deep water in a few spots in New York City, and Newark and Hoboken, New Jersey.
Tropical storm-intensity winds were expected to begin striking the coast at around 8 a.m.
Read:Winds threaten to fan destructive California wildfire
People in the projected path spent Saturday scrambling to stock up on groceries and gasoline. Those close to the coast boarded up windows and, in some cases, evacuated.
Residents and visitors on Fire Island, a narrow strip of sandy villages barely above sea level off Long Island’s southern coast, were urged to evacuate. The last boats out left before 11 p.m. Saturday and officials warned there might be no way to reach people left behind.
The evacuation threw a wrench into Kristen Pavese’s planned Fire Island bachelorette party. The group of 10 had intended to celebrate Saturday night, but ended up leaving on the ferry just a day after arriving. They had planned to stay until Monday.
“I’m upset about it, but it’s the weather. It’s nothing I can control,” said Pavese, a Long Island resident. “I’ve been going to Fire Island for a long time, so I’m sort of familiar with this happening.”
Approaching severe weather Saturday night also cut short a superstar-laden concert in Central Park. The show headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Jennifer Hudson was meant to celebrate New York City’s recovery from the coronavirus. But officials asked concertgoers to leave the park during Barry Manilow’s set amid the threat of lightning.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, set to leave office Monday after resigning over a sexual harassment scandal, emerged Saturday to plead with New York residents to make last-minute preparations, warning that heavy rain, wind and storm surge from Henri could be as devastating as Superstorm Sandy back in 2012.
Read:At least 10 killed in Tennessee flash floods; dozens missing
“We have short notice. We’re talking about tomorrow,” Cuomo said in one of his final forays before TV cameras, a setting that shot him to fame during the worst of the pandemic last year. “So if you have to move, if you have to stock up, if you have to get to higher ground, it has to be today. Please.”
Gov. Ned Lamont warned Connecticut residents they should prepare to “shelter in place” from Sunday afternoon through at least Monday morning as the state braces for the first possible direct hit from a hurricane in decades. Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee issued a similar warning.
Major airports in the region remained open as the storm approached, though hundreds of Sunday’s flights were canceled. Service on some branches of New York City’s commuter rail system was suspended through Sunday, as was Amtrak service between New York and Boston.
The White House said President Joe Biden discussed preparations with northeastern governors and that New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who succeeds Cuomo on Tuesday, also participated.
Biden later began approving emergency declarations with Rhode Island.
New York hasn’t had a direct hit from a powerful cyclone since Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc in 2012. Some of the most important repairs from that storm have been completed, but many projects designed to protect against future storms remain unfinished.
With maximum sustained winds at 75 mph (120 kph), just above hurricane strength, Henri was moving north at 18 mph (30 kph) as of Sunday morning. It was about 80 miles (125 kilometers) south-southeast of Montauk Point on the tip of Long Island.
Some gas stations from Cape Cod to Long Island sold out of fuel. Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman described a run on supplies like batteries and flashlights as people “are starting to wake up” as weather models showed the storm’s center would run “smack on the town of Southampton.”
Read:Coastal evacuations urged as Hurricane Henri heads north
Regardless of its exact landfall, broad impacts were expected across a large swath of the Northeast, extending inland to Hartford, Connecticut, and Albany, New York, and eastward to Cape Cod, which is teeming with tens of thousands of summer tourists.
Storm surge between 3 and 5 feet (1 to 1.5 meters) was possible in much of Long Island Sound all the way to Chatham, Massachusetts, and slightly less on Long Island’s Atlantic coast, the hurricane center said. Flash flooding was possible in inland areas already saturated by recent rain.
In the Hamptons, the celebrity playground on Long Island’s east end, officials warned of dangerous rip currents and flooding that’s likely to turn streets like the mansion-lined Dune Road into lagoons.
“We have a lot of wealthy people. There’s no doubt that we do, but everybody pulls together in an emergency,” Schneiderman said. “So, you know, yeah, there are people hanging out on their yachts at the moment drinking martinis, but they’re also starting to talk about this storm and I’m sure they’re going to want to be helpful.”
Man surrenders after claiming to have bomb near US Capitol
A North Carolina man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the U.S. Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hourslong standoff Thursday that prompted a massive police response and the evacuations of government buildings in the area.
Authorities were investigating what led the suspect, identified as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry, to drive onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress, make bomb threats to officers and profess a litany of antigovernment grievances as part of a bizarre episode that he live-streamed for a Facebook audience. Police later searched the vehicle and said they did not find a bomb but did collect possible bomb-making materials.
The standoff was resolved peacefully after roughly five hours of negotiations, ending when Roseberry crawled out of the truck and was taken into police custody. But even in a city with a long history of dramatic law enforcement encounters outside federal landmarks, this episode was notable for its timing — Washington remains on edge eight months after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — and for the way the suspect harnessed social media to draw attention to his actions in the hours before his arrest.
Read: Afghan official: bombs hit 2 minivans in Kabul, 7 dead
Authorities who spent hours negotiating with Roseberry — he held up handwritten signs through his driver-side window — were continuing to dig into his background Thursday evening. They did not reveal any details about a motive, and no charges were immediately announced.
Investigators had been speaking with members of Roseberry’s family and learned that his mother had recently died, Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “There were other issues he was dealing with,” the chief said, without providing specific details.
But social media appeared to offer its own clues.
As police continued negotiations, video surfaced of Roseberry on Facebook Live inside the truck, which was stuffed with coins and boxes. He threatened explosions, expressed hostility toward President Joe Biden, profanely warned of a “revolution” and laid bare a series of grievances related to U.S. positions on Afghanistan, health care and the military.
Roseberry’s ex-wife, Crystal Roseberry, said she had seen images of the man in the standoff at the Capitol and confirmed to The Associated Press that it was her ex-husband. She said she had never known him to have explosives, but he was an avid collector of firearms.
Videos posted to Facebook before the page was taken down appear to show Roseberry at a Nov. 14 Washington rally attended by thousands of Trump supporters to protest what they claimed was a stolen election. One video appears to be filmed by Roseberry as he’s marching with a crowd of hundreds of people carrying American flags and Trump flags and shouting “stop the steal.”
Thursday’s incident began around 9:15 a.m. when a truck drove up the sidewalk outside the library. The driver told the responding officer he had a bomb, and he was holding what the officer believed to be a detonator. The truck had no license plates.
Read: Israeli military says it bombed home of a top Hamas leader
Kelsey Campbell, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison visiting Washington as part of a class trip, said she and another student encountered Roseberry around 9:20 a.m. outside the nearby Supreme Court building. Campbell said he was with his truck, which was parked next to the sidewalk, and was holding a large stack of dollar bills.
“He said, ‘Hey, call the police, tell them to evacuate this street, and I’ll give you all this money,’” Campbell recounted to The AP. “I said, ’No!’ and he threw the money at us and we started running.”
Campbell said she and the other student saw some police officers standing nearby. They told the officers what happened, and the officers then went to confront Roseberry.
The standoff brought the area surrounding the Capitol to a virtual standstill as police emptied buildings and cordoned off streets as a precaution. Congress is in recess this week, but staffers were seen calmly walking out of the area at the direction of authorities.
By Thursday evening, authorities had finished searching the vehicle and determined the area to be safe after not finding an explosive.
The nation’s capital has been tense since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, when thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the building as Congress was gathered to certify the results of the presidential election.
Read:Bomb kills at least 30 near girls’ school in Afghan capital
A day before the riot at the Capitol, pipe bombs were left at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington. No one has been arrested yet for placing the bombs.
The RNC, not far from where the truck was parked Thursday, was also evacuated over the threat. A spokesman for the DNC said its headquarters, which is located farther away from the truck’s location, was put under lockdown, but that lockdown has been lifted.
Thursday’s incident marked the third time in as many weeks that federal and military law enforcement authorities had to respond to attacks or possible threats in the Washington area. Officials are also jittery over a planned rally in September.