"Since the end of the evacuation mission, we have evacuated roughly 380 Americans," Blinken told reporters Friday. "As of the 10th of November, all U.S. citizens who have requested assistance from the United States government to depart Afghanistan and who we've identified as prepared to depart and having the necessary documents have been given an opportunity to do so."
Those figures beat the estimates in the hours after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan when Blinken admitted there was "a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave."
WATCH: ESPN HOST- DEMOCRAT STRATEGY IS NOT WORKING
State Department officials have highlighted that those figures would change as more people surfaced and asked for aid. However, veteran groups and other advocates for at-risk Afghan nationals have claimed those totals understate the scale of the abandonment.
WATCH: 2004 SNL SKETCH: "DONALD TRUMP’S HOUSE OF WINGS”
"There was still, at the time everything imploded, about 6,000 people in Afghanistan who had a blue passport, who had American citizenship," Blinken said, recalling the security alerts U.S. Embassy officials sent to Americans in the country. "And making that incredibly wrenching decision to leave, to give up everything you know, is incredibly hard and difficult. So, that's why there were still roughly 6,000 remaining despite everything, despite our efforts to encourage anyone who had American citizenship and wanted to leave to take advantage of that."
WELP, CLIMATE WARRIORS HAVE THEIR NEXT TARGET PICKED OUT...
Blinken announced the update alongside Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Thani as they met to approve an agreement that Qatar would function as the "protecting power" for the United States in Afghanistan. That means the government will talk with the Taliban on behalf of U.S. officials in the absence of diplomatic relations between Washington and Kabul. Al-Thani, for his part, made a case for granting humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and contended against the "isolation" of the Taliban.
"We believe that abandoning Afghanistan will be a big mistake, and ignoring it, because isolation has never been an answer for or a solution for any issue, and engagement is the only way forward," the Qatari envoy said. "So that's why we believe engaging with Taliban since they are in power right now is very important for us to ensure that our facilitation for humanitarian assistance is moving smoothly, and also encouraging them and urging them all the time to stand up to their commitments and their pledges for the international community."
TRUMP POINTS (MIDDLE) FINGER AT BIDEN AS PRO-HAMAS DEMONSTRATIONS DESTROY THE IVY'S
Yet U.S. officials have also struggled to secure safe passage for the Afghan relatives of U.S. soldiers, as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's team acknowledged this week.
"We believe it's certainly most likely in the dozens," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "We're working this as hard as we can. We take the obligation seriously to our people and to their families."
Discover alternative ideas that will make you think
Engage in mind bending debate
Earn points, rise in rank, have fun
