The US is sending 3,000 troops back to Afghanistan to help evacuate staff from its embassy in Kabul.
Over the next two days, one Army and two Marine infantry battalions will be deployed to Kabul airport to help with the partial embassy evacuation, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
‘We believe this is it the prudent thing to do given the rapidly deteriorating security situation in and around Kabul,’ Kirby said.
The move comes as the Taliban, as of Thursday, gained control of 11 provincial capital cities, which is roughly two-thirds of Afghanistan.
The Pentagon had kept about 650 American troops in Afghanistan in order to ensure US diplomatic security.
President Joe Biden a few months ago announced that the US would pull all its troops from Afghanistan. Since then, the Taliban has made significant advances, at a rate even faster than US officials foresaw.
Biden has made no indication that he plans to reverse his decision.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the US entered the country in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The extremist group took three provincial capitals on Wednesday and the two capitals it took on Thursday were the 10th and 11th in the sweep.
Earlier on Thursday, as the Taliban encroached on Kabul, American negotiators tried to get assurances that the group would not attack the US embassy, The New York Times reported. The chief American envoy to the Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, tried to prevent a full embassy evacuation.
The State Department on Thursday announced it was sending an undisclosed number of the 1,400 troops at the embassy back to the US.
During a State Department briefing, the agency’s spokesman Ned Price said that diplomatic work would proceed at the embassy in Kabul.
‘Our first responsibility has always been protecting the safety and the security of our citizens serving in Afghanistan, and around the world,’ Price said.
Price added that the rate of the Taliban’s massive gains and instability in the country are ‘of grave concern’.
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