Majority of Afghan partners left behind, says US State Department, calls it 'painful trade-offs'

"Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help depart in this first phase of the operation," said a State Department official.

WASHINGTON DC: A senior State Department official has said that a majority of Afghans who helped the United States and its allies in the 20-year-long war might have been left behind along with their families. Taliban’s swift takeover led to chaos and confusion during military evacuations as US citizens were prioritized in the airlift that came to an end this week, the State Department official said. The departure of the last US military flights out of Kabul on Monday marked the end of an operation that saw more than 123,000 people brought out of Afghanistan in less than two weeks.