again, ahmed mengli joining us live from the kabul airport. we have heard from the pentagon they were able to fly out about 2,000 people. they have said that theoretically their capacity in terms of aircraft is they could fly out between 5 and 9,000 people. they have not reached that capacity. cnn reported today based on the account of a senior administration official that president biden has advised senior military commanders that there should not be empty seats on flights leaving from the kabul airport, that they need to increase the flow through to get people who qualify to come to the u.s., to get people associated with the u.s. government, u.s. media organizations, u.s. ngos, people who have a claim to be evacuated by the u.s. need to be flowing through in greater numbers and filling every seat on those planes. certainly not happening yet but that is reportedly the president s order. nearly ten years ago, president barack obama decided to put a man named john sopko in
ahmed, let me ask you, as we re looking at these scenes from across the world, and as i say, concerned about you and respectful of your decision that your family should go so you can move more easily without them, without endangering them, i absolutely understand what you re saying and that you want to keep working. what should we understand about the importance about how things are going to develop? as americans, we re so focused on the evacuation efforts right now. the question of whether the u.s. military could expand the perimeter at all around the airport to make it less dangerous to go through that gauntlet you went through, to get your family actually inside the airport. we re so focused on what the americans and u.s. forces there can do, just in the very short term in order to get people out. what else do you think we should be looking at beyond that very short-term focus that we have right now as a country? reporter: you know, the forces are operating inside the base or th
into the airport or people who work with them on their mission in afghanistan. so outside is like totally controlled by taliban, so they re inside andn, they re trying to help those people, you know, in the airport. ahmed mengli, longtime nbc producer with his family. thank you for your work. god bless your family on the travels they re about to start. be safe. thank you. all right. again, ahmed mengli joining us live from the kabul airport. we have heard today from the pentagon that they were still able to fly out, i guess, yesterday, they were able to fly out. they could fly out between 5,000 and 9,000 people. they have not reached that capacity. cnn reported today, based on the account of a senior administration official, that president biden has advised
outside gate, it was taliban when we arrived during the day, but later on, some special forces of afghanistan that i wasn t thinking of them being there, here somewhere, showed up and, you know, start trying to have the u.s. forces or the turkish, spanish forces, norwegians, some multinational groups who are taking their citizens into the airport or people who work with them in their mission in afghanistan. so outside is totally controlled by taliban, so they are inside and they are trying to help those people, you know, in the airport. ahmed mengli, long time nbc producer at the kabul airport with his family, who are leaving, he s staying. god bless your families on their travels they re about to start. be safe. reporter: thank you.