The Pentagon is calling on US airlines to help with Afghanistan evacuations

As the US evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan, continues, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin moved to activate the Civil Reserve Air Fleet on Sunday for just the third time in its history, calling up commercial aircraft to join the effort to transport evacuees.

The civilian fleet will not fly into Kabul’s airport directly, according to the Pentagon, but will instead be used to ferry evacuees onward “from temporary safe havens and interim staging bases” after they have been airlifted from Kabul.

“Activating CRAF increases passenger movement beyond organic capability and allows military aircraft to focus on operations in and out of Kabul,” the Pentagon said in a statement Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that CRAF activation was under consideration by the Biden administration.

Currently, military aircraft — massive C-17 Globemaster III and C-130 Hercules planes — are being used to rescue thousands of US citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients, and “other at-risk individuals” from the country following the collapse of the US-backed government there earlier this month and ahead of the US troop withdrawal deadline of August 31.

The US is flying evacuees from Kabul to Doha, Qatar, where the US maintains an air base, and to a number of other countries, both in the region and further away.

“Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan have been, or will soon be, transiting Americans or, in some circumstances, others through their territories to safety,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week.

Some Afghan refugees have also been evacuated to the US; hundreds arrived in Annandale, Virginia, on Saturday night, and thousands more are expected to arrive in coming weeks.

“We have never seen this kind of increase in people wanting to volunteer,” Jacqueline Buzas, a program supervisor for a Texas refugee aid organization, told the Washington Post as communities in the US prepare to welcome Afghan refugees. “We have people calling to say, ‘I have an extra bedroom.’ Or, ‘I’m retired and have this extra house.’ People understand the human aspects of this, having to flee this life-or-death situation. And they just open the door.”

More than a dozen other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, have also evacuated their citizens and Afghan nationals this week, according to Reuters.

The initial CRAF response will consist of 18 aircraft drawn from six different US-based passenger and cargo airlines, according to the Pentagon: American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air will contribute three planes each, while Hawaiian Airlines will provide two and United Airlines four.

Capt. John Perkins, a spokesperson for the US Transportation Command, told the New York Times on Sunday that CRAF aircraft would begin operating on either Monday or Tuesday. In a Sunday statement, American Airlines said its aircraft would be “ready to deploy” by Monday.

“American is part of the CRAF program and is proud to fulfill its duty to help the U.S. military scale this humanitarian and diplomatic rescue mission,” the company said. “The images from Afghanistan are heartbreaking. The airline is proud and grateful of our pilots and flight attendants, who will be operating these trips to be a part of this life-saving effort.”

Previously, CRAF aircraft have been activated to assist US forces as part of Operations Desert Shield/Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Pentagon said. The program itself was established in 1951 by the Defense and Commerce departments in response to the Berlin airlift.

The decision to enlist civilian aircraft in the evacuation comes after a hectic week; Kabul fell to Taliban forces on August 15, and the US has deployed thousands of troops back into the country to help stabilize the airlift operation from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

As of Saturday, according to Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the US has about 5,800 troops on the ground and the airport “remains secure” as evacuation flights continue.

“In the last 24 hours, six US military C-17s and 32 charters departed Kabul,” Taylor said Saturday. “Through this combined effort, the total passenger count for those flights was approximately 3,800.”

At one point earlier in the week, a single US C-17 also evacuated 823 Afghans, including 183 children, setting an aircraft record for C-17s in the process.

The C-17, using the call sign Reach 871, was not intending to take on such a large load, but panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp, one defense official said.

Instead of trying to force those refugees off the aircraft, “the crew made the decision to go,” a defense official told Defense One.

Within the last 24 hours, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday, the US and coalition partners have evacuated almost “8,000 people on about 60 flights.” Since last Saturday, according to the White House, more than 25,000 people have been evacuated between US and coalition flights.

However, there are tens of thousands more people who still need help: In a Wednesday interview, President Joe Biden told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that his administration estimated there were still between 50,000 and 65,000 Afghan allies of the US to be evacuated, including families. www.vox.com