White House states the US has capacity to evacuate 300 Americans in the time remaining

Senior administration officials of the White House have said the US has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300 American citizens still in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden's Tuesday deadline, as rocket fire in Kabul and another US drone strike against suspected Islamic State militants highlighted the war's grave threat in its final days. 

1,200 people were evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours

"We have the capacity to evacuate 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining," Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday for those U.S. citizens seeking to leave Afghanistan by the looming deadline. About 1,200 individuals were evacuated from Kabul over the previous 24 hours, according to the White House.

Sullivan promised that after Tuesday, the US would ensure safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident, as well as those Afghans who assisted them. Untold numbers of Afghans who are frightened of a return to the cruelty of Taliban rule prior to 2001 are likely to be left behind. Blinken said the US was working with other countries in the region to keep the Kabul airport open or reopen it in a timely manner following Tuesday. 

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said the US programme in Afghanistan, with 2,500 troops on the ground, was working. He explained, "We were, in effect, keeping the lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting, and having a light footprint in the country." The American drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle carrying multiple Islamic State suicide bombers, generating secondary explosions that indicated the presence of a large amount of explosive material, according to US officials. After men were seen placing explosives into the trunk of a vehicle in a complex between two buildings, a military drone fired a Hellfire missile, according to a senior US official.

The White House has delayed Biden's meeting with Ukraine's president

In April, Biden stated that the last 2,500 to 3,000 troops will be gone by September, bringing an end to what he has dubbed America's "long war." As the US drawdown from Afghanistan enters its stressful closing hours, the White House has delayed Biden's meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, from Monday to Wednesday.

(Inputs from AP News)

Image- @QudsiyaMashhadi/Twitter, AP