airfield, but you also have the inner perimeter guarded by americans, the outer perimeter guarded by the taliban and both of those are enemies of isis-k. they would be able to strike quite a devastating target if they were to hit, kill afghans waiting to get in. phil mattingly just pointed out an aide telling him it s in this perpetual state of evaluation right now as things get more dangerous as that deadline looms. cnn has also learned more than 100 prison inmates loyal to isis-k have escaped from the prison near kabul. this is a group that certainly doesn t like america, but also doesn t like the taliban. so as you re looking at this
blinken is expected to speak in a couple of hours to layout the specific number of americans evacuated from afghanistan and the number that remain in afghanistan. the president and his national security advisor jake sullivan have committed that every american who wants to leave afghanistan will be evacuated by that august 31st deadline. the numbers have been pretty capab cagey over the last several days. the president yesterday made clear he believes they are on pace to achieve the goals they set out in the evacuation. that is why he s sticking to that august 31st deadline. what that achievement looks like has been somewhat amorphous over the last couple days. the real question right now and i m hearing this a lot from lawmakers on capitol hill, democrats and republicans, is what that means for afghans.
barbaric. cnn s barbara starr is at the pentagon. the pentagon voicing confidence it will get all remaining americans out of the country. what are you hearing from defense officials? is biden going to be able to pull this off without leaving people behind? the answer is nobody knows until it s over, right? that is the goal, first and foremost, to get all americans out of avfghanistan who want to leave. so far they ve conducted three helicopter extraction missions in the kabul area to bring americans out and to the airport. they are certainly going to try right up until the last minute. whether they can get all those afghans out who have the proper paperwork also problematic, because the clock is winding