Safety screeners at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar have detected that not less than one of many Afghans who was evacuated from Kabul Airport has potential ties to ISIS, a U.S. official confirmed to Protection One.
Furthermore, the Protection Division’s Automated Biometric Identification System has flagged as much as 100 of the 7,000 Afghans evacuated as potential recipients of Particular Immigration Visas as potential matches to intelligence company watch lists, a second official mentioned.
No less than 6,000 fleeing Afghans have been evacuated to Al Udeid and hundreds extra have been flown to different short-term staging bases all through the Center East and Europe by U.S. navy plane. At these bases, Customs and Border Patrol screeners are checking evacuees’ IDs and biometric knowledge in opposition to regulation enforcement databases, the primary official mentioned.
In the end, hundreds of these Afghans will come to america, the place they are going to be initially housed at a number of navy bases, akin to Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Lee in Virginia.
“There’s actually been quite a few them” who triggered alerts, requiring brokers to drag these evacuees apart for additional screening, the primary official mentioned. Generally, these Afghans—lots of whom have already been vetted via the particular immigrant visa course of—have been cleared by follow-on screening.
However in not less than one case, the evacuee “seems to be like a possible member of ISIS,” the primary official mentioned. “They’re nonetheless working that via.”
On a Tuesday name with reporters, a senior administration official mentioned that Afghans evacuated to third-party international locations are going via “strong safety processing” earlier than coming to america.
“That course of entails biometric and biographic safety screenings performed by our intelligence, regulation enforcement and counterterrorism professionals who’re working fairly actually across the clock to vet all these Afghans earlier than they’re allowed into america,” the senior administration official mentioned.
For the primary few days after Kabul fell on Aug. 15, there have been a restricted variety of U.S. screeners at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport working to vet lots of, then hundreds of evacuees. Thus far, the U.S. navy and chartered plane have flown out greater than 63,000 People, Afghans, and allied companions fleeing the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, in one of many quickest and largest air evacuation operations within the navy’s historical past.
But it surely wasn’t simply the sheer numbers of those who was the problem. The brokers have been combating outdated vetting techniques and couldn’t combine all the info wanted, such because the Protection Division’s biometric database info, mentioned a second official who’s acquainted with the vetting course of.
“CBP on the bottom has outdated tech they usually don’t know methods to use it, combine it,” the official mentioned. “And there’s not sufficient individuals to course of” all the evacuees.
It may take as much as an hour for the system to crunch the information and inform a screener whether or not an individual is “inexperienced”—cleared—or “crimson” and a possible safety danger, which has been a part of the explanation for big backlog of evacuees caught at bases now.
“The underside line is the system is working, however gradual within the course of,” the official mentioned.
In the previous couple of days, the U.S. navy and civilian airlift operation has gained tempo, flying out 21,600 individuals on Tuesday alone. These operations are racing in opposition to an Aug. 31 deadline to get all troops out.
Whereas many of the safety alerts have occurred at Al Udeid, the huge airlift operation has expanded to the extent that it’s potential there are Afghans with potential terror ties getting flagged at different bases.
“I can’t rule it out,” the official mentioned.
Jacqueline Feldscher contributed to this report.