800 Americans evacuated from Afghanistan since Taliban takeover

The U.S. government has evacuated more than 800 American citizens from Afghanistan since the Taliban swept to power and U.S. troops officially left the country last August, according to data provided by House GOP investigators and the State Department.

The figure, which hasn’t been previously reported, highlights the ongoing nature of the efforts to make contact with and ultimately evacuate hundreds of Americans who were unable to leave Afghanistan as the U.S. military rapidly withdrew from the country last summer.

The data also underscores that hundreds more Americans were left behind in Afghanistan than was previously known.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed the number of evacuated American citizens, and added that at least 600 legal permanent residents of the U.S. have also been evacuated since American boots left the ground.

Two weeks after the last U.S. plane left Kabul on Aug. 30, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers that there were only 100 Americans citizens left in Afghanistan who wanted to leave, emphasizing that the estimate was a “snapshot in time.” By February 2022, the U.S. had evacuated 479 Americans from Afghanistan, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee GOP report.