off in kabul real questions about the fate of hundreds of americans and thousands of a gains seeking to escape the country, one of the explosions directly outside the baron hotel where one week ago american citizens secretly congregated for the largest extraction effort made public to this point. just yesterday there were 169 americans who we got over the wall and into the airport using military assets. s. reporter: jake, the scale of the challenges that president biden will have to address will be matched by only the scale of the tragedy that he now confronts. these are the first military personnel killed due to hostile action since president biden has taken office and as pentagon officials made abundantly clear that threat is only growing and more urgent. jake. phil mattingly at the white house, thanks so much. we just tlaernd isis-k has claimed responsibility for
who worked with the americans, that this particular group was working to get out, were killed in that blast. god. i want you all to take a listen to president biden s message just six days ago when he was discussing possible attacks on u.s. service members. we made clear to the taliban that any attack, any attack on our forces or a disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with swift and forceful response. so we do not the u.s. intelligence does not think that the taliban was responsible for the attack in terms of carrying it out, but they were responsible for the security, so i m not sure how the president s threat would apply. what do you think? i think the president s threat applies to isis-k. the people who carried out the violent attack. absolutely. the ones who carried out attack. those are the ones that the president should be looking at in terms of retribution or some kind of attack against them if it s possible to get the right kind of intelligence
as soon as you start leaving the airport american citizens and people afail sited with the americans are going to surge the airport because they know their throats are going to get slit by the taliban. that s what happening in this circumstance and the biggest question, jake, you can surge in the american military to get aircraft to take people out and there s a big foot fingerprint and you tell me whether you like obama or trump or biden. you give me a better plan, i don t see it, jake. and, kim, obviously the concern is continued attempts at evacuating the thousands of american citizens and green cardholders, thousands of a gan special immigrant visa recipients and others. you continue to try to get people out. some officials that i m speaking
others fleeing afghanistan were sitting for hours and hours outside the gate, not permitted to travel those last few yards into the airport. the culmination of what the president and his top aides had been warning about all week. every day we re on the ground is another day we know that isis-k is seeking to target the airport and attack both u.s. and allied forces and innocent civilians. we re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the taliban with the very real possibility of an isis-k attack. the threat is real. it is acute. it is persistent. the big question now with u.s. citizens and legal permanent residents not to mention afghan allies still trapped in afghanistan, will president biden continue the evacuation mission until they are rescued, or will he now feel compelled to pull all u.s. service members given that his worst fears have been realized? we re covering allageles with our team of reporters around the world. we re going to star
today s deadly terrorist attacks. let s bring in cnn s chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. jim, what are you snaerg what do we know in the pentagon keeps saying that the threat is still ongoing. yeah. 24 hours ago you and i were sitting here and i was discussing a credible intelligence stream about exactly this kind of target and this group. isis-k orris mick state in the korison and nobody has said that isis-k has lost that ability to carry out more attacks. kabul remains a target-rich environment. there are loads of civilians trying to get into the airport and other targets around the city and the fact is that afghanistan has become in recent weeks something of a disney land of terrorists of all sorts, not just isis-k. remember, the taliban itself is a terrorist organization but you have many other recruits coming in from around the world and coming there so this is a capability that continues, and