Biden set to give public update on situation in Afghanistan

US president Joe Biden was meeting with his national security team (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

The US military is considering “creative ways” to get Americans and others into Kabul’s international airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid “acute” security threats, Biden administration officials have said.

While the Pentagon, on Sunday, ordered six US commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan.

One week on since the Taliban completed its takeover of the country, US officials expressed growing concern about the threat to the evacuation from so-called Islamic State (IS).

US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin said the airlift would continue for as long as possible (Alex Brandon/AP)

This worry comes on top of obstacles to the mission from the Taliban, as well as US government bureaucratic problems.

US president Joe Biden was planning to provide a public update on the situation in Afghanistan on Sunday. He was also meeting with his national security team.

And Afghanistan will be the chief topic of discussion when leaders of the Group of Seven industrialised nations, including Mr Biden, meet virtually on Tuesday.

“The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we’re focused on with every tool in our arsenal,” Mr Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

Speaking on CNN’s State Of The Union programme, Mr Sullivan said that 3,900 people had been airlifted out of Kabul on US military flights over the past 24 hours.

A US defence official said those people were flown on a total of 23 flights – 14 by C-17 transports and nine aboard C-130 cargo planes.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

This represented an increase from 1,600 flown out onboard US military planes in the previous 24 hours, but remained far below the 5,000 to 9,000 the military said it had the capacity to airlift daily.

Mr Sullivan also said that about 3,900 people had been airlifted on non-US military flights over the past 24 hours.

The Biden administration has given no firm estimate of the number of Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total at between 10,000 and 15,000. Mr Sullivan put it at “several thousand”.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken acknowledged the desperate situation at the Kabul airport.

“We’ve seen these wrenching scenes of people crowded at the gates. People hurt, people killed. It’s an incredibly volatile situation and we’re very focused on that,” he said on CBS’ Face The Nation show.

The British Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that another seven people had been killed in the unceasing crush of crowds outside the airport.

The US military took control of the airport for evacuations a week ago as the capital fell to the Taliban.

We're gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out. And we've got - we continue to look at different ways to - in creative ways, to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield

US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin

But Taliban forces controlling the streets around the airport, and the throngs of people gathering outside in hope of escape, have made it difficult and dangerous for foreigners and their Afghan allies to get through.

Republicans in Congress stepped up their criticism of Mr Biden’s response and called for the addition of US troops to help Americans get safely to the airport so they can leave.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin told ABC’s This Week programme that as Mr Biden’s August 31 deadline for ending the evacuation operation approached, he would recommend whether to give it more time.

Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to be flown out of the country.

US officials have cited increased concerns about security threats at the airport from militants affiliated with IS.

The US Embassy on Saturday warned citizens against travelling to the airport without individual instruction from an American government representative.

Mr Austin said the airlift would continue for as long as possible.

“We’re gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” he said.

“And we’ve got – we continue to look at different ways to – in creative ways, to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield.”

Members of the British and US military assist in the evacuation of people out of Kabul (MoD/PA)

He later said this included non-Americans who qualify for evacuation, including Afghans who have applied for Special Immigrant Visas.

Mr Austin noted that the US military on Thursday had used helicopters to move 169 Americans into the airport from the grounds of a nearby hotel in the capital.

A central problem in the evacuation operation is processing evacuees once they reach other countries in the region and in Europe. These temporary waystations, including in Qatar, Bahrain and Germany, are reaching capacity at times, although new sites are being made available, including in Spain.

In an attempt to alleviate this, and to free up military aircraft for missions from Kabul, the Pentagon activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet on Sunday.

The defence department said 18 aircraft from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, Omni Air, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines would be directed to ferry evacuees from interim waystations. The airlines would not fly into Afghanistan.

The six participating airlines have agreed to assist for a little less than two weeks, which roughly coincides with the currently planned duration of the airlift, which is due to end on August 31.

The civil airline reserve system was last activated in 2003 for the Iraq War. The commercial airliners will retain their civilian status but the military’s Air Mobility Command will control the flights.