• Former CIA officer Sam Faddis has claimed Americans and Afghan allies stuck in Kabul actually have far less time to evacuate 
  • The terrorism expert told DailyMail.com he’s been informed civilian evacuation flights out of Afghanistan are set to end in three days – not August 31 
  • ‘Biden decided we’re pulling out within 72 hours. We’re gone, and it doesn’t matter who’s left on the ground,’ Faddis said citing military sources 
  • US forces need time to get out and have to ‘collapse on themselves to maintain some sort of security perimeter,’ he added
  • A military contractor who spoke to DailyMail.com on the condition of anonymity claimed that he too had been told that the deadline was swiftly approaching
  • ‘They’re talking uniformed military personnel out by the 31st, and they’re giving a shorter window for all non-military civilians,’ he said
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American civilians and Afghan allies have just 72 hours before evacuations from Kabul end, a former CIA officer and terrorism expert has claimed.

Sam Faddis, who served as the head of the Counter Terrorism Center’s Weapons of Mass Destruction unit, said sources in the Pentagon, military officers in Kabul and other former intelligence agency officers have told him that flights for civilians out of the Afghan capital will actually end in the next three days.

The alleged deadline has not been officially announced or verified, but raises fears that American citizens could be left behind in the Taliban-occupied city.

On Tuesday President Joe Biden confirmed that US forces will be leaving the country by August 31, a date agreed with the Taliban – but Faddis claims American civilians currently in the city have a far shorter deadline.

‘Biden decided we’re pulling out within 72 hours. We’re gone, and it doesn’t matter who’s left on the ground,’ the ex-CIA officer told DailyMail.com.

American civilians and Afghan allies have three days to flee Kabul before evacuation efforts end, a former CIA officer and terrorism expert has claimed. Pictured: US Air Force members guide evacuees on board a US aircraft on Tuesday

Crowds of people wait outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan as the clock to freedom ticks down Wednesday

‘From folks inside Kabul, the word they’re getting is everything shuts down in 72 hours. I presume that translates to evacuation flights of any civilians terminate in 72 hours.

‘Because just getting the troops and their equipment out takes a certain period of time. They have to collapse on themselves to maintain some sort of security perimeter.

‘The word is, it doesn’t matter about American citizens. Because there’s no hard headcount.’

Former CIA officer Sam Faddis told DailyMail.com that sources in the Pentagon and Kabul said flights for civilians out of the Afghan capital will actually end in the next three days

Top generals have refused in press conferences and briefings to lawmakers to disclose the precise number of American citizens still in Kabul, simply saying they were in the ‘thousands’.

‘What I’m constantly being told, and have been told for many days now, is that any notion this is conditions-based is wrong,’ Faddis added. ‘We’re leaving, anybody who is not gone is cut away.

‘Every time I say it I find it staggering to even hear myself say it, but it’s apparently true. We’re just going to leave.’

Faddis took the first CIA team into Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion and wrote a book about his experiences in the agency, Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com on Tuesday, he claimed that defense officials had also told him that Biden rejected an alternative evacuation plan even after being warned that Kabul’s international airport could not be defended if attacked.

Faddis said officials in the 18th Airborne Corps proposed US forces retake Bagram air base about 30 miles north of Kabul, which was abandoned in July due to the limited number of American troops and surrendered to the Taliban by Afghan troops on August 15.

‘The original plan that came out of the 18th Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg was, there’s really only one rational way to do this,’ he said.

‘We’ve got to go retake Bagram and establish a real base of operations at a defensible location with multiple runways that will allow us to operate our own aircraft.

‘I’ve been told by multiple people that this was the plan, it was the only rational plan, and the answer [from the White House] was ‘that’s not happening.’

‘The idea of introducing more forces, retaking Bagram, was just ruled out completely.’

Faddis claimed that Bagram was dismissed despite senior military officials briefing the White House against using Kabul’s city-center civilian airport, Hamid Karzai International, as a base because of the vulnerability of US troops were it attacked by the Taliban.

‘It was made very clear in regard to Kabul International Airport that it is a completely non-viable military solution to begin with because it is a militarily indefensible position,’ Faddis said.

‘It’s a tiny little perimeter on a single airstrip surrounded by high ground with potentially tens of thousands of enemy fighters closing in.

‘The only resupply is by that single airstrip, and that airstrip can be rendered essentially useless any time the enemy decides by firing rockets and artillery onto the runway.’

Faddis said Biden was told: ‘You are placing our troops on the ground in a position which we cannot hold if it is contested.’

‘The military told him explicitly this is not a viable military option, meaning if you do this, unless we are extraordinarily lucky, we are going to lose very badly and be lucky if we ever see any of our people ever again. That’s what that translates to in US military parlance,’ he said.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby dismissed the idea of retaking Bagram airbase in Afghanistan when questioned by journalists on Monday, calling the plan an ‘expenditure of resources’