these isis terrorists will not win. we will rescue the americans in there. we will get our afghan allies out. and our mission will go on. america will not be intimidated. now, that drawdown mission certainly will take heightened importance over the course of the next few days especially as that security situation around the could be bull airport becomes more precarious. now, the president has said that they are in contact with the majority of americans that they know to be in the country, and are working with them to try to get those who want to leave afghanistan to the kabul airport so that they can be evacuated. but there are also other steps that will need to be taken before that august 31st drawdown. it is not just the evacuation of americans. they are also trying to get as many afghan allies out as possible and then there is the actual military drawdown that needs to be taken into account as well.
attacks. reporter: bombings targeted many who were trying this vein to get into kabul airport and get on one of the last evacuation flights. the taliban pledged to punish those behind it. the blasts were just outside an gi abbey gate and near a hotel occupied until recently by british forces. it is an area packed for days with afghans wading through sewage canals, those conditions would surely have amplified the explosion. american officials have been working with potential attacks for days. wednesday they stepped up the alarm talking about a very specific threat stream and about planned attack on crowds outside the airport. americans were killed when in close contact screening and searching evacuees at the gate. isis will not deter us from
that it is very hard to get people now on to the airport. because you have this heightened security situation and of course the fact that frankly for their own protection so many of the americans and the remaining nato allies dwindling fast in number have to worry about the persistent isis threat. nick, thanks. let s turn now to arlette saenz in washington. in just a few hours the president and vice president will meet with their national security team. similar question to what we were tal talking about with nick, the attack obviously prevented a lot of afghans from making it to the airport. do you hear that it will impact the u.s. plans to have the drawdown complete by the 31st? reporter: president biden has really remained steadfast in that august 31 drawdown. in fact yesterday at the white house the president even argued that the threat of possible terror attacks is one of the
messages from people i met last month, messages that people have heard that cnn has managed to get people out, our staff out, our local producers out. you know, these are coordinated missions that have taken a lot of manpower, a lot of people on the ground. that window has now closed and the harsh reality now is that these people are stuck in afghanistan, they are trapped, and they don t know if they will ever be able to leave. or if they are just going to have to leavive under taliban r. or if they are on a death list, that is the thing, a lot of people whose very lives are at stake now. anna, have to leave it there. thank you. despite thursday s deadly terror attack in kabul, evacuations are going on at the city s airport. we ve been seeing planes taking off over the last couple of hours. we ll bring you the latest on efforts to get people out while they can. and later, how will the attack in kabul and evacuations from
[ inaudible question ] wherever they are. the attack comes as u.s. forces race to evacuate americans and some of the thousands of afghans who helped them fight the taliban. earlier i spoke to cnn military analyst and retired air force kernel cedric leighton about the challenges to protecting the airport. force protection is actually job one for all deployed commanders in the united states military and that normally means protecting your own force and allied forces. this is a little bit more difficult because you also have a civilian population that you also want to protect and that is i think one of the big issues here because force protection obviously there were measures in place, but they didn t work as they wanted them to, as they were intended to. and that makes for a big difference. i think when you have a situation where when a disaster like this occurs, you have to change a lot of practices and you d have to change them on the