Biden "completely" reaffirms decision to withdraw forces from Afghanistan

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, reaffirmed Monday "completely" in his decision to withdraw his country's troops from Afghanistan, after the scenes of chaos experienced in the last hours at the Kabul airport, after the fall of the Afghan capital in the hands of the Taliban. Meanwhile, the United States asked its citizens in Afghanistan to "take shelter" and not to go to the Kabul airport, after the dramatic scenes at the airport as hundreds of people tried to board planes stationed there.

"We are asking U.S. citizens to take shelter and not to travel to the airport until further notice from the State Department," State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news conference after the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban on Sunday.

Shortly before, President Biden assured in an address to the nation from the White House that "after 20 years" he has learned "the hard way that there would never be a good time to withdraw U.S. troops" from the Asian country.

The president stressed that the longest war in U.S. history ends with him, and insisted that he will not pass the conflict "to another president," referring to his three predecessors who have occupied the White House with military troops deployed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Biden recalled that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was never to create "a unified, centralized democracy," but to prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. soil, so he defended that his decision to withdraw troops is the "right" one.

"Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be to build a nation," said Biden, who interrupted his break Monday at the presidential residence at Camp David (Maryland) to go to Washington.

On the other hand, he warned that his country will defend its people with "devastating force" if the Taliban attack U.S. personnel or sabotage the evacuation of Afghanistan.

Biden acknowledged that the Taliban's capture of Kabul came "faster than expected" and sent a message to Russia and China, which, he said, would love to see his country continue to spend billions of dollars in resources to stabilize Afghanistan. 

The U.S. has sent 6,000 troops in recent days and another 1,000 are on their way to the Asian country to help evacuate American civilians and their allies following the insurgent takeover of Kabul, something that has caught Washington off guard.

At least two armed people have been killed by gunfire from U.S. forces at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced Monday.

Speaking to reporters, Kirby explained that U.S. soldiers "responded to hostile threats, resulting in the deaths of two armed individuals" in two separate incidents at the airport, but did not specify whether the deceased have any links to the Taliban.

This Sunday, the U.S. completed the transfer to the airport of the capital of all the personnel of its embassy in Afghanistan, hours after initiating an aerial evacuation from that complex that was reminiscent of the one carried out during the fall of Saigon in 1975.