possibility that there could be some kind of terror attack here. and we know that the security situation on the ground has been a case of strange bedfellows with the united states and taliban trying to work to secure the various gates to this airport while the u.s. was completing this air lift. rob sanchez, you re in london. let s talk a little bit about the players on the ground here. because the threat here, unusually for americans who follow this war in afghanistan the last 20 years, wasn t from the taliban. they were effectively security partners now. there s been a lot of talk about isis-k, the isis affiliate in central asia. what do we know about that group and the concern that these allied intelligence agencies might have had about them trying to make a splash while the u.s. is still in afghanistan? reporter: yeah, garret. so isis-k is isis khorasan. khorasan refers to an area of central asia. this is the afghan affiliate of the islamic state.
geoff, from the white house perspective here, obviously, we talked earlier about the enormous success of this air lift over the last couple of days, but also the president and some of his democratic allies have talked about the fact that they knew this was going to be messy. there s no good way to end a war and to get everyone out. he has taken a ton of flack in the press, from republicans, from some democrats, for the nature of this. how does the white house they put the president out there a little bit. one short news conference. he has done one full-length interview about afghanistan. how do they feel they are shaping the way that americans think about this withdrawal and the possibility that this could get ugly, that it could remain it s a war. like a real flesh and blood war until the bitter end. and there are a range of unintended consequences when you try to wind down a 20-year war. it s a great question that you ask. the white house would make the
they will have to halt the process of flying out civilians and move the british focus to withdrawing uk forces. the prime minister is trying to look beyond that point, saying we will continue a diplomatic and political effort to pressure the taliban to continue to let afghans out, even after western forces are gone. but, garrett, this explosion at the airport today will complicate what was already a very, very delicate situation on the ground in kabul. yes, it will, almost regardless of what happened there. i understand the british armed forces minister spoke about this threat a little earlier today prior to this taking place. i want to play a little bit of what they had to say. intelligence over the course of the week has become ever more certain around the highly credible, imminent, lethal attack on to the airport whilst, of course, the clock is still ticking toward the end of the month. we have to share that very, very
room and get briefed there from pentagon officials. the fact that the pentagon briefing is moving from 10:30, as it was previously scheduled, to much later in the day, gives us some sense that, yes, they are gathering information in real time and making decisions accordingly, garrett. i m joined now by david rhode, executive editor for the new yorker.com and msnbc contributor. he was kidnapped by the taliban in 2008 and held for seven months in pakistan. he has rare expertise on all of these issues here. david, i wonder what your take is as you re watching the coverage here. you are familiar with this airport, familiar with that area. talk a little bit about the challenges of trying to continue this operation we ve been watching several flights take off since we ve come on the air, even under the circumstances of this explosion and trying to kind of continue that effort in a very challenging security situation. yeah. i think it s important to sort
extreme risk. clint, thank you. stick around. i want to bring back nbc s courtney kube at the pentagon. she s been working her source at the pentagon, trying to get more detail here. what do you know? reporter: unfortunately we don t know a whole lot more. we re still trying to figure out how many casualties there were and the extent of it, and who they were. we know that there were afghan civilians outside this gate at the time of this explosion. it s worth pointing out, too, this is an area where there had been americans and afghans going through this gate, the abby gate, in recent days. over the weekend, when there s this new threat that was emerging from isis, the u.s. worked with the taliban to expand out the perimeter a little bit. they actually the taliban checkpoints that were there were pushed back a bit. it made for more room for civilians, afghans trying to get through these gates. they had more room to gather in there. it sort of dispersed the crowd.