President Joe Biden left open the possibility of extending the Aug. 31 deadline for the full removal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. “There's discussions going on among us and the military about extending,” he said. “Our hope is we will not have to extend.” While saying there had been progress this weekend in evacuating people out of Afghanistan, he added: "We have a long way to go. And a lot could still go wrong." The scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport remains frenzied, with seven people killed as crowds try to get out of the country, the British military reported on Sunday.
On Saturday, troops from several nations tried to control the crush of people pressing to get into the airport, as temperatures hit the mid-90s. It wasn’t immediately clear whether those killed had been physically crushed or died from other health conditions. A NATO official told Reuters on Sunday that 20 people have died in the last week at the airport amid the evacuation. President Joe Biden said Sunday the United States had evacuated 11,000 people from Afghanistan in roughly 30 hours but acknowledged "heartbreaking" images from the Kabul airport as Afghan families seek to flee.
“There's no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images on television. It's just the fact," Biden said Sunday. "I will say again today what I've said before: any American who wants to get home, we'll get you home,” Biden said. He said the United States is working to get people to the airport in Kabul, but declined to offer any details of the plan for safety reasons.
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