U.S To Evacuate At-Risk Afghan Interpreters Late July

Thousands of interpreters who aided US and NATO forces in Afghanistan will be evacuated beginning in late July, as Taliban insurgents captured a strategic crossing on the Pakistan border from government forces.

In what the White House dubbs Operation Allies Refuge, the interpreters and their families are likely to be taken first to US overseas military bases or possibly third countries before resettlement in the United States or elsewhere.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the goal is to get those already being processed under the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visas program, only a portion of the 18,000, out by the August 31 deadline for the US withdrawal.

Many fear retaliation by the Taliban, who are seeking to regain control of the government in Kabul after the departure of US troops before the end of August.

There are an estimated 18,000 people — interpreters, translators, and others who worked with US forces — who would qualify for evacuation. With their families, it could potentially take the total number of evacuees to 80,000 or more.

At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said they were working intensely on where the translators would be sent, but he would not identify any possibilities.

The news came as the US military pushed forward with the final tasks of withdrawing from the country, and as the Islamist insurgents captured Spin Boldak, the border crossing on the main highway between Kandahar and Quetta, Pakistan, and continuing onward to Karachi.

Afghanistan’s interior ministry denied the insurgents had taken the area.