US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin has ordered the US airlines to provide 18 aircraft to support evacuation missions from Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Sunday. A week since the Taliban entered Afghan's capital city and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled, the scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport remains frenzied.
The U.S. continues to evacuate Americans and Afghan people with special immigrant visas. Seventeen thousand people have been taken out of Afghanistan in the past week. The Defense Department is acting under Stage I of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet and confirmed the commercial aircraft wouldn't be flying in and out of Kabul.
"The current activation is for 18 aircraft: three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines and Omni Air; two from Hawaiian Airlines; and four from United Airlines," said the statement. The statement added that the commercial planes would not fly into Kabul Airport.
US Military aircraft will focus on operations in and out of Kabul, and commercial planes "will be used for the onward movement of passengers from temporary safe havens and interim staging bases," it said. The US has been scrambling to evacuate Americans and its Afghan partners from the country since Taliban forces entered the capital Kabul on August 15.
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