
'Majority' of Afghans who worked for the US and applied for visas were likely left behind, State Department official says
CNN
"The majority" of Afghans who worked for the United States during its two-decade military campaign were likely left behind in the chaotic and rushed evacuation from Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.
The official said they did not have a specific count of the Afghan Special Immigrant (SIV) applicants and family members who did not make it onto evacuation flights, "but I would say it's the majority of them, just based on anecdotal information about the populations we were able to support." There were at least 20,000 SIV applicants in the pipeline prior to the US withdrawal, and the State Department has not provided a specific count of how many of the 123,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan fall into that category.
The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”
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Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.