to be there past 31st or if they could get all of the americans out and whether they make the decision on whether the u.s. troops stay while the endangered afghans are trying to get out. two things we should note. one president biden has told and made clear to aides he doesn t want to see any empty seatsond flights leaving kabul. that has been an issue when they were first getting the flights underway. just trying to get flight news the airport and out of the airport. he has told aides since then he does want to see any empty seats. of course that doesn t mean that you won t see any of them given the chaotic nature that we re still seeing. but that is a directive that we have heard about from the president to his top aides. the other thing that we should note is just how even president biden seem surprised by how you will this hinges on the taliban. and they re saying that they ve been talking with taliban local commanders about ensuring that people can get through. a lot of the people
ago cut that red tape and approved legislation to speed the special visas for them and still, only 2,000 have reached here. they re talking about thousands more of family and people who need to be evacuated. the fact that that debacle happened at the airport, watching human beings clinging to c-17s and that picture you showed at the open and the pictures in richard s piece showed mostly men jammed into that c-17. that s because women are afraid to leave their homes. the taliban are already going house to house. i m getting emails, voicemails, people calling, human rights groups are getting flooded from calls from women and girls. already the taliban taking girls from their mother s and the video is too horrifying to show. women aren t going to go to the streets and climb a fence and get on the tarmac. there were mostly men in that picture for the reason.
correspondent richard angle is on the ground in afghanistan for us tonight. tens of thousands of afghans swarmed into kabul airport. desperate to weave at any price. they burst through security. climbed over walls, and spilled on to the tarmac. searching for any airplane that would take them far away from afghanistan, away from the taliban. so many managed to cram into one plane, the pilot refused to take off. people on board refused to disembark. but it was a cross of barb wire divide, where it turned really ugly. on the military side of the airport, american troops trying to evacuate u.s. embassies, staff found themselves overwhelmed, suddenly battling crowds, firing warning shots, this was not the mission they came for. the pentagon says u.s. troops shot dead to armed afghans. but still the crowds did not
so many managed to cram into one plane, the pilot refused to take off. but it was a cross of barb wire divide where it turned really ugly. on the military side of the airport, troops trying to evacuate staff found themselves overwhelmed battling crowds, firing warning shots. this was not the mission they came for. the pentagon says u.s. troops shot dead two armed afghans. but still the crowds didn t disburse. instead they ran along and clung to the undercarriage of a military plane as it taxied for takeoff. one official told me it was 100 times worse than the humiliating american pullout from saigon. afghans are running from the taliban now in full control. today setting up checkpoints with the very weapons american taxpayers bought for the afghan
civilians. a photo shows over 600 people, mostly afghans, packed inside a c-17 transport late sunday, all of them desperate to get out of a nation now under taliban control. this world witnessed the panic in kabul as people tried to escape the insurgents closing in on the city. the end of the afghanistan we knew and fought for came quickly in the end. nbc news veteran chief foreign correspondent richard engel is on the ground in afghanistan for us tonight. reporter: tens of thousands of afghans swarmed into kabul airport, desperate to leave at any price. they burst through security, climbed over walls, and spilled onto the tarmac searching for any airplane that would take them far away from afghanistan, away from the taliban.