US Orders Non-Essential Staff to Leave Kabul Due to Threats

The United States has ordered non-essential staff to leave its Kabul embassy citing increased threats as Washington prepares to end its 20-year war in Afghanistan. The order came two weeks after President Joe Biden announced that US troops would leave the country by September.

 

Meanwhile, Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s special envoy to Afghanistan,  said in a Senate



hearing that  aid could be slashed if a Taliban-dominated government did not respect human rights.

 

Ross Wilson, the acting US ambassador in Kabul, said the State Department took the decision in light of increasing violence and threat reports in Kabul. He said the order affected an unspecified relatively small number of employees and that the embassy would remain operational.