White House mobilizes military and charter flights to evacuate Americans

The White House began organizing military and charter flights on March 4 to evacuate Americans stranded across the Middle East, a shift in U.S. public guidance after days of travelers reporting canceled flights, airport closures and crowded consular hotlines. The State Department said it is securing both military and charter aircraft while continuing to encourage commercial departures where possible.

Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson said on X that the department "We've been in direct contact with nearly 3,000 Americans abroad." A senior State Department statement, released as officials coordinated with regional partners, said the department is facilitating charters out of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and that the U.S. government would cover the cost of those flights. The department also advised U.S. citizens to use its emergency line at +1-202-501-4444 for immediate assistance.

Consular officials escalated public warnings. Mora Namdar, the assistant secretary for consular affairs, posted on X that Americans should "DEPART NOW" from more than a dozen countries and territories, a list the department included in a security update that names Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Officials and lawmakers gave different snapshots of the movement of people. Sen. Marco Rubio said in public remarks that the State Department has been helping Americans evacuate for the last 72 hours using military, commercial and charter flights, and that about 9,000 Americans had left the region while more than 1,500 had requested U.S. help to leave. State Department figures also described more than 9,000 people who had managed to depart on their own, underscoring that assisted evacuations are only part of the total outflow.

The shift in messaging follows reports that an earlier recorded State Department hotline message told callers not to rely on assisted evacuation and that there were no official evacuation points. That guidance left many travelers frustrated, saying other foreign nationals were being flown out while U.S. citizens struggled to get through to help lines. Officials said those operations and messaging changed in the past 24 to 72 hours as the administration moved to arrange aircraft and coordinate departures.

Washington officials cautioned that evacuations are complex and will take time. A briefing included the line that operations are constrained "because we don't control airspace closures," reflecting the intermittent limits on regional flight corridors. President Donald J. Trump, asked why evacuation plans were not in place sooner, said the situation unfolded rapidly: "It happened all very quickly," and "I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked."

Beyond U.S. nationals, international companies and foreign governments are scrambling; Russia's state atomic energy corporation reported that 639 of its employees remain in Iran. The larger economic fallout is already visible in market reactions and energy prices as regional tensions affect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and global oil markets.

For Americans seeking help, the State Department reiterated its emergency contact line +1-202-501-4444 and urged travelers to maintain documentation, monitor embassy notices and consider commercial options while government-assisted charters and military lift are arranged.