The situation at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, is “more dire” than the State Department has previously admitted, according to a reporter from National Public Radio, and staffers are “gearing up” to destroy sensitive documents and electronic devices in the event the city falls into Taliban hands.
The Taliban is also reportedly closing in on the capital city after taking Kandahar and Herat on Thursday.
“The situation at the US Embassy in #Kabul is more dire than what the State Department is saying,” Tom Bowman of NPR reported on social media late Thursday. “Mail has stopped. Nearly all employees are packing up and a very small number will head to another location. Staff are gearing up to destroy sensitive papers, computers, phones.”
As The Daily Wire reported earlier on Friday, the Biden administration “is reportedly pleading with Taliban terrorists to spare the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as the extremist group has rapidly regained control of the majority of Afghanistan” in a “sweep” that is netting major cites, allowing the Taliban to encircle Kabul and giving it an offensive advantage.
“American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country’s government and ever wants to receive foreign aid,” The New York Times reported. “The effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off a full evacuation of the embassy as they rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan.”
The Biden administration also announced Thursday that it was sending U.S. military personnel into Kabul to help evacuate strategic personnel and a number of Afghan translators from the embassy there, signaling an increased concern that the Taliban will not spare American and allied lives.
The Associated Press added, Friday, that the Taliban “completed its sweep” of Afghanistan’s southern region, taking an additional four major cities and wresting control of “Helmand province, where American, British and allied NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles in the past 20 years. Hundreds of foreign troops were killed in the province, which is also a major opium hub.”
“The Taliban now control more than two-thirds of the country just weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops,” the outlet reported.
The U.S. military anticipates that, at this rate of success, the Taliban could control Kabul within a month. It already controls a critical highway linking Kabul to the nation’s southern provinces.
“The insurgents also are on the move in Logar province, just south of Kabul, where they claim to have seized the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Puli-e Alim as well as a nearby prison,” the New York Post added. “According to the latest US military intelligence assessment, Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days — and the Taliban could gain full control of the war-torn country within a few months.”