Afghanistan updates: Thousands of US troops to help with US Embassy departures

The State Department will begin reducing its staff levels at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the Pentagon will send troops to help with the departures.

The State Department will begin reducing its staff levels at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the Pentagon will send troops in to help facilitate those departures, as Taliban forces advance on more provincial capitals. There wasn't any specific event that led President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to execute the plan, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Thursday afternoon, but rather the overall worsening trend in Afghanistan. "There wasn't one precipitating event in the last couple of days that led the president and the secretary to make this decision. It's a confluence of events, and as I've been saying for now for several weeks, we have been watching very closely with concern the security situation on the ground -- and far better to be prudent about it and be responsible and watching the trends to make the best decisions you can for safety and security of our people than to wait until it's too late," Kirby said. The events in Afghanistan over the last 24 hours, with the Taliban pressuring major Afghan cities, were significant factors in the decision to go forward with the reduction in embassy staffing and the new military mission, a U.S. official told ABC News.