US Ambassador Last to Depart Kabul

A US air force aircraft carrying families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, arrives at Kosovo’s capital Pristina International Airport on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (AP)
A US air force aircraft carrying families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, arrives at Kosovo’s capital Pristina International Airport on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (AP)
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US Ambassador Last to Depart Kabul

A US air force aircraft carrying families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, arrives at Kosovo’s capital Pristina International Airport on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (AP)
A US air force aircraft carrying families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, arrives at Kosovo’s capital Pristina International Airport on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (AP)

The United States announced on Monday that it has completed its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying over 122,000 people were airlifted from Kabul since August 14 – a day before the Taliban took over the country.

The Defense Department said US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, was on the last flight departing the country.

The Pentagon had repeatedly said it was determined to quit the country within the August 31 deadline announced by President Joe Biden.

Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the evacuation was dangerous and not without challenges, adding that efforts were ongoing to evacuate Americans and Afghans.

Washington was in contact with the Taliban to facilitate the operation, he revealed, clarifying, however, that the US was not in contact with the group in carrying out air strikes against ISIS-K in Afghanistan.

During a press briefing at the Pentagon on Monday, Kirby said the US administration was considering destroying military equipment and munition. “Nobody could’ve imagined how quickly that government would’ve literally just dissipated almost overnight. There was simply no way to predict that.”

“This has always been a dangerous operation but we’re in a particularly dangerous time right now,” he added of the evacuation.

He added that American forces were investigating the damage from the strikes that were carried out against ISIS, amid reports that civilians were among the casualties.

“We’re assessing and we’re investigating. Make no mistake, no military on the face of the Earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military and nobody wants to see innocent life taken. We take it very, very seriously.”

“When we know that we have caused innocent life to be lost in the conduct of our operations, we’re transparent about it. We’re investigating this,” he continued.

Moreover, he said that the departure of American forces from Afghanistan does not mean the end of the war on terrorism. Kirby stressed that Washington will continue to cooperate with the international community.

A US drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s ISIS affiliate on Sunday before they could attack the military evacuation at Kabul’s international airport. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike.

The strike came just two days before the US was set to conclude a massive two-week-long airlift of more than 114,000 Afghans and foreigners and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America’s longest war with the Taliban back in power.

Speaking at the same press briefing on Monday, Army Major General William Taylor, the deputy director of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said: “This self-defense strike successfully hit the target near Kabul airport. Significant secondary explosions from the targeted vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.”

“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties, and we take these reports very seriously, and we are continuing to assess the situation,” he added.

“Separately, at approximately 11:00 PM Eastern time last night, as many as five rockets were fired at the Kabul airport. US military forces successfully employed our force protection measures to thwart that attack. US forces retain the inherent right of self-defense, and are authorized to meet threats with a swift and forceful response. Force protection is paramount in this phase of the operation,” he stressed.

“Over the weekend and into today (Monday), evacuation operations continued. Yesterday (Sunday), 26 US military aircraft, all C-17s, departed with approximately 1,200 evacuees. In total, there were 28 flights out of Kabul airport in the last 24 hours, which included the remaining coalition departures.

“As of today (Monday), more than 122,000, including 5,400 Americans, have been evacuated from Afghanistan. US military troops have shown tremendous bravery and compassion as they put themselves in harm’s way to evacuate as many American citizens and Afghans as possible during this operation,” said Taylor.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command said in a statement: “We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul.”

“We are still assessing the results of this strike, which we know disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat to the airport. We know that there were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehicle, indicating a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties. It is unclear what may have happened, and we are investigating further.”

The New York Times had reported that the strike against ISIS had killed ten people, including seven children and American relief agency worker who was contracted with the US military.



Congress Approves Trump's $9 billion Cut to Public Broadcasting, Foreign Aid

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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Congress Approves Trump's $9 billion Cut to Public Broadcasting, Foreign Aid

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda.

The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature, The AP news reported.

“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.

No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.

The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure.

The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump’s tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the U.S. debt by about $3.3 trillion over the coming decade.

"No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending,” said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming.

Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are "not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”

As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.

But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was “at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save.”

Inside the cuts to foreign aid Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and family reunification for refugees and $496 million to provide food, water and health care for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a $4.15 billion cut for programs that aim to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations.

Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill.

“This is not an America first bill. It's a China first bill because of the void that's being created all across the world,” Jeffries said.

The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.

“The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee.

After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took out a $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under Republican President George W. Bush.

Looking ahead to future spending fights Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the nation’s priorities.

Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House, the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to pass it along party lines.

Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other Republicans also raised concerns about the process.

“Let’s not make a habit of this,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn’t providing enough information on what exactly will be cut.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows “enthusiasm” for getting the nation’s fiscal situation under control.

“We’re happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done,” he said during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts -- $9 billion -- Vought said that was because “I knew it would be hard” to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package is ’likely to come soon.”