{"id":665363,"date":"2021-08-20T11:06:12","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T15:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=665363"},"modified":"2021-08-20T11:06:15","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T15:06:15","slug":"white-house-says-it-doesnt-have-precise-number-of-americans-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-says-it-doesnt-have-precise-number-of-americans-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Says It Doesn\u2019t Have \u2018Precise Number\u2019 of Americans in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhite-house-says-it-doesnt-have-precise-number-of-americans-in-afghanistan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=665363&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/2021-08-20T142253Z_1_LYNXMPEH7J0SF_RTROPTP_4_AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT-e1629471070915.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014The U.S. government does not know exactly how many Americans are currently in<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">&nbsp;Afghanistan<\/span>, the White House communications director said on Friday, even as it races to evacuate thousands of people from the chaotic Kabul airport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have a precise number and there&#8217;s a reason for that,&#8221; Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told CNN, adding that is partly because the current count &#8220;includes people who may have left the country, who may have left over the course of the last six months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we&#8217;re doing is working to identify how many Americans are there,&#8221; Bedingfield said.<\/p>\n<p>President Joe Biden has said he would extend the Aug. 31 deadline for troops to leave<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">&nbsp;Afghanistan<\/span>, which the United States invaded two decades ago, to ensure all Americans get out, making it crucial to know how many remain in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Estimates of remaining Americans range widely. According to the Washington Post, national security officials told a bipartisan group of Senate staffers on Tuesday that about 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizens are in Taliban-controlled<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">&nbsp;Afghanistan<\/span>. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that between 5,000 and 10,000 U.S. citizens were believed to be in the Kabul area.<\/p>\n<p>The count will fluctuate daily as thousands of people are airlifted from Kabul. The U.S. goal is to remove 5,000 to 9,000 people per day.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has evacuated approximately 14,000 people since the end of July. More than half of those, 9,000, have been removed since Aug. 14, according to a White House official.<\/p>\n<p>The official said that out of the 3,000 people evacuated by the United States on Thursday, 350 were Americans.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday the U.S. military evacuated about 1,100 Americans, permanent residents of the United States, and their families.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As of a few weeks ago we had already begun reaching out to all American citizens who were in<span class=\"highlight\" data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">&nbsp;Afghanistan<\/span>, via email, via text, via messaging app to hear from them, and to understand their plans and work with them to get them out if they want to get out,&#8221; Bedingfield said. &#8220;And so that is a massive logistical operation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014The U.S. government does not know exactly how many Americans are currently in\u00a0Afghanistan, the White House communications director said on Friday, even as it races to evacuate thousands of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-665363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}