U.S. embassy warns Americans against traveling to Kabul airport barring individual instructions

The United States Embassy in Afghanistan on Saturday warned American citizens against traveling to Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport, where evacuation flights are departing from, unless they've received individual instructions to do so "because of potential security threats outside the gates."
The announcement comes as the U.S. tries to safely evacuate its citizens who have remained in Kabul since the Taliban took the Afghan capital last week, as well as Afghan civilians who aided the U.S. military. On Friday, President Biden vowed to get everyone home and said he hadn't heard of any Americans having trouble getting to the airport, though the claim received pushback from journalists citing reports from the ground, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House lawmakers during a Friday briefing that Americans have been beaten by Taliban in Kabul.
It's not clear how many Americans are still trying to get to the airport or how the latest security warning will affect the evacuation effort. The embassy said it will update U.S. citizens as the security situation changes.
Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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