OPINION (ETH) – President Biden in an interview with ABC that aired Thursday said “no one’s being killed” in Afghanistan despite reports of at least seven deaths amid the chaos at Kabul’s airport and of Taliban beating people on their way to the airport, as he defended his handling of the American withdrawal from the country.

According to Fox News, Biden further told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that intelligence did not indicate the Afghan government would quickly collapse – despite reports that’s exactly what the intelligence said. And the president said his advisers did not tell him to delay the troop withdrawal, despite reports that’s exactly what his advisers did.

“Oh, there is,” Biden said when asked about “pandemonium” near the airport by Stephanopoulos. “But, look – but no one’s being killed right now, God forgive me if I’m wrong about that, but no one’s being killed right now.” The president continued,
METRO reported: ‘We got 1,000-somewhat, 1,200 out yesterday, a couple thousand today and it’s increasing.


Advertisement


We’re gonna get those people out. There have been a dozen confirmed deaths since the Taliban took over Kabul on Sunday after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. ‘We’ve all seen the pictures. We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17.

You’ve seen Afghans falling,’ Stephanopoulos said in the interview recorded on Wednesday. Biden was quick to defend himself again, saying those photos were taken ‘four days ago, five days ago’. Of the 12 victims, the youngest was 14-year-old Marzia Rahmati, whose family released images of her body on Thursday in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of Afghans seeking to board an evacuation flight leaving Kabul, the Daily Mail reported.