US expands efforts to relocate Afghans at risk of Taliban attacks

The US military is preparing to house as many as 35,000 Afghan interpreters and family members at two Middle East bases.

US soldier Michael Wilcox teaches an interpreter to play rock, paper, scissors in Chora, Afghanistan. Picture: Morgan Evan.

The US military is preparing to house as many as 35,000 Afghan interpreters and family members at two American bases, in Kuwait and in Qatar, in an expanding effort to aid those who face Taliban retribution for helping American forces.

Plans are under way to build temporary housing and other facilities at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar and Camp Buehring in Kuwait that would be designed to house the interpreters for at least 18 months. Thousands of welcome packages, containing health and comfort items and packaged military meals that don’t contain pork, to accommodate Muslim dietary requirements, are being positioned at the bases, officials said.

The plans are to accommodate the interpreters and their families as they await processing for American visas to be permanently resettled in the US. Construction and other preparations at the two bases are expected to cost the US government several hundred million dollars, officials said.

The plans build on similar preparations elsewhere. A first group of about 2500 Afghan interpreters and their families are expected to arrive at Fort Lee, Virginia. in coming days, officials said. Those people, who include 750 applicants and family members, will stay at Fort Lee for a week to 10 days before being resettled in the US permanently.

Thousands of other interpreters and their families aren’t as far along in the Special Immigrant Visa application process, which can take several years to complete. As Taliban fighters make gains across Afghanistan, officials cite a growing need to evacuate those interpreters and their families from the country as soon as possible to protect them from potential retaliation.

In third countries, such as Qatar and Kuwait, the Afghans can complete security vetting and other application procedures before resettlement in the US, officials said. Officials said arrangements with Kuwait and Qatar weren’t final, and State Department officials have yet to determine the scale of the operation, which it is calling Operation Allies Refuge.

“We are conducting planning for multiple scenarios, including the potential for tens of thousands of people,” said one US official. “Though it’s unclear for how many, and how soon and for how long.”

While the military is preparing for as many as 35,000 evacuees, other administration officials said talks under way with the potential host nations encompass lower possible numbers of Afghans.

President Joe Biden’s announcement in April that he was ending the US role in the nearly 20-year conflict added momentum to a continuing Taliban offensive, officials have said. That put in peril the tens of thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who had helped the US over the years.

Aiding them is a bipartisan cause. Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as top US military officials, have urged the Biden administration to move faster on plans to evacuate those individuals, estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000 people, and their families.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill with a broad bipartisan margin, 407-16, to raise the visa cap to ensure it covers all Afghan applicants still in line and waive some of the paperwork requirements to qualify. The bill also makes family members of deceased visa applicants eligible to go to the US.

Mr Biden in recent weeks grew frustrated at the pace of progress, and directed officials to move more quickly, according to a US official.

At least one of the two bases, Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, had been slated for closure before military officials began preparing it for the possibility of housing interpreters. The base played a central role in the war in Iraq in 2003 and after. It was considered a base for rest and relaxation for American troops, equipped with pools, other recreation facilities and higher-caliber housing. Camp Buehring in Kuwait, built as a way station for US troops transiting into the war in Iraq, has some of the same kind of features and recreational facilities, officials said.

The Biden administration is working to compress the time it takes for people to apply for the Special Immigrant Visas. About 70,000 Afghans have received such visas since 2008, State Department officials said.

The State Department has identified 4000 principal applicants and families whose visa applications are in early stages, making them ineligible for transfer directly to the US like some of the others.

State Department officials said they would be transported to third countries, without confirming that Qatar and Kuwait are the destinations. Those people will complete the Special Immigrant Visa process in the third countries and won’t need to spend time at Fort Lee or another US facility, officials said.

Applications for Special Immigrant Visas, known as SIVs, total more than 20,000, with approximately half of those still in the initial phases of the process, according to State Department officials. Advocacy groups such as No One Left Behind estimate that as many as 300 Afghans have been killed by the Taliban for their association with the US since 2009. Advocates think tens of thousands more interpreters and others should be eligible for the program.

US officials said some Afghans who assisted the US government have been unable to meet the documentation and other requirements of the SIV program; they said the Defence Department is helping people who may have lost touch with contractors who employed them in years past.

For those people who aided the US government and other organisations, but may not be eligible for the SIV program, officials said the administration is considering several options, including the US refugee program.

The Wall Street Journal