explosive devices. now that this has gone from a chaos outside the airport to a catastrophe outside the airport, there are difficult decisions to make, but decisions crucial ones that will effect how the next 100 hours plays out from a u.s. perspective. trying to figure out how to extricate the remaining americans at the very least who want to leave, that s a complicated task now. comply cayed, i would say, is an understatement here. if it s unsafe to move them on the ground, be it by simply having them walk or simply by having them take a car, you don t have another option other than helicopters. there have been limited helicopter operations into kabul to bring out americans and bring them to the airport. but those have been of short distance and krduration. meaning the americans were close to the airport. that brings its own element of risk, especially now that it s clear isis-k is ready and waiting and trying to carry out attacks against u.s. forces and
of course it s a fluid situation. this is exactly what president biden s fear had been when it came to the evacuation and the argument where he pushed back on lawmakers, other world leaders who said they wanted that deadline to be extended past august 31st. more of the evacuations of afghan allies could continue. one of the main reasons he and several advisers in the west wing pushed back and never considered an extension is because they were worried about the security situation, and they have been monitoring the threats. we should note, anderson, now that we know several of the service members have now been killed in this explosion, last night the state department sent out an update saying if you re an american citizen, get away from these gates. these gates to get into the airport, the only gates to the only airport to get out of kabul. the service members were there anyway. working on processing these people. and obviously that speaks to just how heroic they were. we don t have info
tried to leave very early on when there were still commercial flights out. do you have the sense of how many afghans who have, you know, sivs or other reasons to leave are actually still there? do we know? it has to be in the thousands. i mean i personally know of four sivs who can t get out. they ve got all of their paperwork. they tried the gate several times around the airport, and now they re afraid, especially that was before the suicide attacks. there have been various different a lot of disinformation floating around where people will be told, hey, siv applicants, go to this hotel, we re gathering you together to bus you into the airport, and then people who are cited in those missives say, we didn t go to the hotel, we didn t send it out, it is a trap. it is a very confused time. the other thing happening is, yes, these people are trying to
of the spectrum. the other wrap the aerpgs now and get out as quickly as possible. those would be two extremes. the white house and the pentagon will have to make a decision on where you fall if you change course, or do you try to continue it until the end. what level of coordination with the taliban is there if they re trying to increase their form of security around the airport or what they know about this. one of the questions we re waiting to hear from the pentagon is an update on what pentagon press secretary said ellier today. a number of u.s. and civilian casualties, the extent of those injuries and, of course, the number. that s the key update we re waiting for. other decisions how this effects the operation need to be figured out. the pentagon planned for a number of different possibilities and we ve known there was an ongoing threat from isis-k and known the tactics they try to use. suicide bombings as well as vehicle born improvised
no great surprise they would be assigned responsibility. not least because there was detailed intelligence that was emerging last night with the united states, australia and others, warning their citizens to get away from the airport gates, leave the area because there was a danger of an imminent attack. and about 12 hours later, that s just what followed. therefore, reinforcing, the previous intelligence reinforced the pentagon s view this almost certainly was isis-k. this is a disaster obviously for the united states in terms of evacuating their sitcitizens an people with the special immigrant visas who had been tried to stay away from the gate and banned from traveling there anyway by the afghan taliban. sam, let me ask you. within the airport itself with the u.s. forces there, british forces there, what are the medical capabilities that u.s. forces have or british forces have to treat wounded troops?