The u. S. Has credible intelligence that isis has both the Capability And Planning to carry out such attacks. This according to a u. S. Defense official i have spoken to. Security concerns around the airport are one of the major Reasons President biden cited for sticking to his August 31st deadline for the withdrawal of all u. S. Forces. The White House just announced that about 19,000 people were evacuated in the past 24 hours, people like those youre seeing there. More than 82,000 people in total have been airlifted over the course of the last 11 days. Were expecting a live update from that Pentagon Podium this hour. Well bring it to you live. Were covering all the fastmoving developments out of afghanistan. Lets begin with Cnns Nick Paton walsh who is in qatar where many of these evactuation are going. We also have atika shubert. Nick, this has been described as acute, credible and specific. What are you hearing . Reporter i can only agree with the notion that isisk, if theyre able
Taliban to maybe find some Negotiation Space for theyve said no more afghans can leave. Clearly theres 10,000 at the airport. So something is happening behind the scenes thats helping some people get through. Can you talk about that to some extent . Ill turn it over to the general. Ill start with that last question first. It kind of comes off of some things that mr. Kirby just said with that constant communication. I know the most senior commanders on the ground are out and discussing with the taliban leaders that are manning these checkpoints exactly what the documentation needs to look like, times and coordination, details of that. As we know, though, there are reports that some arent able to get through there. I can tell you that the department of state, the consulor affairs are working with commanders there to ensure that documentation, names and those things, as often as required, are being communicated to the taliban that are at those checkpoints to allow transition in there to g
I can tell you there isn t a single day that goes by where admiral vasely and general donohue aren t working this in a very personal way with taliban authorities outside the airport. let me go to another one on the phone. tara. thank you for doing this, john. yesterday the president mentioned, also, that he was calling upon the department to create contingency plans in case the number of americans and afghans that still need to get out have not gotten out by the 31st. can you just explain sort of what the department is thinking about what its options might be to continue to get americans out after the 31st if they haven t made it to the airport by then? just to follow on jeff s question with afghans that aren t getting through, have discussions gone on with the