Today, Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced that the department will send an additional 1,000 US troops to Afghanistan to help secure Kabul airport after chaos on the runway, as thousands of Afghan civilians tried to flee the country.
Kirby added - according to the American newspaper "The Hill" - that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the immediate deployment of the new forces in Kabul, and thus the total number of American forces at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul will range between 2500 to 3000 soldiers by tomorrow morning, with a total 6000 soldiers in the city over the coming days.
Kirby noted that the closure of the US embassy means that the US presence is now focused on the airport, as all incoming and outgoing flights have been temporarily suspended until it is safe.
Videos and photos appeared on the Internet showing huge groups of Afghan civilians trying in anarchy to leave the country - after the Taliban took control of Kabul - by storming the airport runway to catch flights departing from Afghanistan, and some of the crowd tried to jump on moving planes.
In a separate context, the British Ministry of Defense announced that an additional 200 British soldiers will be sent to Kabul to help with evacuation efforts in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country.
The ministry explained - according to the British newspaper, "Evening Standard" - that once the soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan, there will be about 900 members of the British armed forces on the ground.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab revealed that this was the main point of discussion at the meeting of the British Emergency Committee (COBRA) on Monday, which was chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan.
This is the third time that senior British ministers have met to discuss the situation in Afghanistan since last Friday, and Raab admitted that everyone was surprised by the scale of the Taliban's seizure of power.
It is expected that 150 British citizens will return to the territory of the United Kingdom in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
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