At almost the same time that White House chief of staff Ron Klain was promising CNN’s Dana Bash that the Biden administration would get stranded Americans out of Afghanistan, CBS News reported that the Taliban was holding at least 19 American citizens and hundreds more people hostage at an airfield in Northern Afghanistan.
“CBS has learned multiple flights are being held on the ground at the Mazar-i-Sharif airport in Northern Afghanistan… by the Taliban,” CBS Foreign Affairs Correspondent Eena Ruffini reported. “An email from the State Department to members of congress — and viewed by CBS — acknowledged that charter flights are still on the ground at the Mazar-i-Sharif airstrip and have permission to land in Doha ‘if and when the Taliban agrees to takeoff,” Ruffini continued.
“The Taliban is basically holding them hostage to get more out of the Americans,” a senior congressional source told Ruffini.
The planes belong to a non-governmental organization named Ascend, which told CBS News that it has had two planes waiting for six days ready to fly Doha, Qatar.
Klain told Bash this morning that the U.S. was hopeful Qatar would be able to operate out of the Kabul airport soon. “We are going to find ways to get them, the ones that want to leave, to get them out of Afghanistan,” Klain said. “We know many of them have family members, many of them want to stay, but the ones that want to leave, we’re going to get them out.”
Commenting on Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal this morning on This Week, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, “You can’t project strength if you look scared.”
