U.S. bars flight with Americans from Kabul from landing, group says

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday denied U.S. landing rights for a charter plane carrying more than 100 Americans and U.S. green card holders evacuated from Afghanistan, organizers of the flight said.

"They will not allow a charter on an international flight into a U.S. port of entry," Bryan Stern, a founder of non-profit group Project Dynamo, said of the department's Customs and Border Protection agency.

Stern spoke to Reuters from aboard a plane his group chartered from Kam Air, a private Afghan airline, that he said had been sitting for 14 hours at Abu Dhabi airport after arriving from Kabul with 117 people, including 59 children.

His group is one of several that emerged from ad hoc networks of U.S. military veterans, current and former U.S. officials and others that formed to bolster last month's U.S. evacuation operation they saw as chaotic and badly organized.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.