On Thursday, 3,000 people left the airport in Kabul aboard 16 military C-17 planes, according to the official, who declined to be identified, cited by the Efe agency. Of those, 350 were US citizens, the rest of them family members, Afghan collaborators and family, in addition to Afghans considered "vulnerable", according to the same source.

The total number of flights sent by the United States in the last 24 hours may, however, be higher, since during that period 11 charter flights left Afghanistan, whose passengers have not yet been counted, according to Efe. The numbers continue for now to fall short of the expectations of the Pentagon, which intended to transport between 5,000 and 9,000 people a day from Kabul airport.

The United States on Monday resumed military flights at Kabul airport, which had been interrupted due to chaos caused by the concentration of hundreds of Afghans on the runway, desperately trying to leave the country after the Taliban took the capital. Up to 15,000 Americans remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country over the weekend.

The Taliban conquered Kabul on Sunday, ending an offensive that began in May, when the withdrawal of US and NATO military forces began.
International forces have been in the country since 2001, as part of the offensive led by the United States against the extremist regime (1996-2001), which welcomed in its territory the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, mainly responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The seizure of the capital ends a 20-year foreign military presence in Afghanistan by the United States and its NATO allies, including Portugal.