expect to be still be doing the large bulk of processing of applicants, of afghan evacuees by the weekend. so as the 36-hour window left for them to work in, less now, in fact, given the time currently in kabul. so this operation coming certainly to a close. doesn t mean, for example, if an american passport holder turns up saturday, sunday they ll be refused evacuation, but that the large numbers we ve been seeing daily, remarkable that they are, in the tens of thousands now reduced, though, to 13,000 in the last 24-hour period. that that may get even less still, for the simple fact, jim, we ve been reporting the gates are shut. abby gate, a key access point is closed. the crowds around it appear to be dispersed and lessened. you saw there the images of the taliban controlling access to the airport as well. so it s exceptionally hard if you are an siv applicant to get into the airport at this point. and that, of course, means that
for you, harris. yesterday i have been tracking in realtime an afghan ally who is trying to get his wife and five children out. he is an siv applicant, approved and he was trying to make his way from that barron hotel trey was talking about 200 yards into the abbey gate. he did not make it. he tried to get as far as he could. he could not. he claims the taliban beat his wife. he was not able to access it. now with these two attacks and this situation clearly there is a message being sent to those americans and afghan allies to not even try to make it out at this point. now that s important, harris, because we learned from secretary blinken yesterday that any contingency plan to get americans out beyond the august 31st deadline was dependent upon public commitments from the taliban now in control of kabul to insure their safe passage. that clearly is not capable at
embassy. they appear to have gotten 1300 of them out of the country, which is a great success and a huge weight off the minds of the diplomats that sat with them day in, day out in the embassy and seeing them in kabul without regret. the number may have come down because there is this extraordinary rate of people being escorted and assisted to get onto the airport. what there is not at the moment, it seems, is for an unconnected, not well versed in the geography of the base siv applicant to find a way to get through the crowds and the taliban checkpoints, to get onto the gates that are now closed. that stream of people is drying up, and so i am absolutely fervently led to believe we are looking to the end of friday being when this evacuation effort it s massive. it involves thousands of people, being processed. i ve seen benches of marines with their laptops. this is a big operation. it s not something you can keep going to the last minute when you re in the middle of a
i promise. stephen locey. yes, thank you. can you tell me if all siv holders who have made it onto the airport ground with valid papers are going to be able to make it onto flights? i ask because an interpreter with an siv i ve been in contact with, just made it onto the grounds, was almost put out of the gate. that appears to have now been corrected. but will this interpreter and other siv holders who are on the ground be able to fly out before the deadline is over? yes. sylvia. thank you. i have two small questions. first, about the numbers. you said that 88,000 departed since the 14th of august. is it only u.s. flight, so if it s not on a u.s. flight, how
that is similar to me in giving a cap. there are people who are not yet through the process who may not count as an siv applicant at this point in time or may be eligible for a range of programs. our objective, as you ve seen by the numbers over the past several days is to evacuate as many people as possible who qualify for any of these programs. i guess, why can t the white house or the administration say what that stated goal is even as a base line so people get a sense of what we re shooting for in this process? what s the harm in saying that? because i don t think there s a benefit in giving a cap. that s not our objective. it gives context to when you say 80,000. fair. i think important context, though, is that we have now evacuated, again, 88,000 people, well, 82,000 people on u.s. military and coalition flights. just a week ago some people were saying we couldn t do 50,000. we ve done 82,000.