Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary, holds a briefing for the media on Afghanistan at the State Department in Washington, D.C., 25 August 2021.
Blinken explained Wednesday that the U.S. government doesn't track Americans' movements around the globe. "There may be additional Americans in Afghanistan that have never registered with the Embassy, ignored evacuation notices, and not yet identified themselves."
This 1,500-strong group represents approximately 6,000 Americans who were in Afghanistan at the time of the massive U.S. Airlift that began on August 14.
According to a spokesperson for the State Department, 500 Americans were evacuated within the last 24 hours. The spokesperson requested anonymity to discuss numbers that remain fluid.
WASHINGTON The State Department stated Thursday that it was in touch with approximately 1,000 U.S. citizens still in Afghanistan, and that nearly two-thirds are actively seeking to leave.
"We also discovered that many people who call us and claim to be American citizens, such as by filling out repatriation assistance forms and submitting them, are not actually U.S. citizens. This can be difficult to confirm.
The State Department stated that approximately 500 additional people reached out to it "purportingly to be Americans in Afghanistan wanting to leave" and that U.S. diplomats tried to reach them.
However, the official stated that the department was skeptical of some last-minute claims.
According to the official, "Based on our experience many of these won't turn out to be U.S. citizen in need of our aid."
The spokesperson stated that of the approximately 660 U.S citizens who were contacted by the State Department over the past day or so and are actively trying to flee Afghanistan, "many, or most of these individuals, are almost or already out of Afghanistan."
The U.S. also knows of many more American citizens who are not willing to leave Afghanistan.
According to the latest State Department figures, one of the most difficult parts of the U.S. withdrawal is the hunt for every American civilian living in a country without reliable internet or phone service.
For the past 20 years, U.S. humanitarian workers and Christian missionaries were active in Afghanistan. They often worked in remote areas far from major cities.
It was not clear how exactly the State Department had found these 1,000 missing people. Officials did not say what would happen to those citizens who couldn't leave the country by President Joe Biden’s August 31 deadline.
The efforts to locate and extricate individual U.S citizens were made more difficult by a suicide bomber attack that killed 12 American servicemen and injured 15 others outside Kabul's airport gates.
ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack, which resulted in the deaths of at least 60 Afghan civilians.
Biden will speak at 5:00 pm Thursday to discuss the terrorist attacks as well as the ongoing evacuation efforts.
