Not allow afghans to leave. Members of the group are telling the thousands of afghans at kabul airport to go home. Here is what a taliban spokesman said today. Quote, the afghans leaving, we are not going to allow that and we are not even happy about it, end quote. So the pressure is on to accelerate those evacuations. The pentagon says a plane is now departing kabul every 45 minutes. The u. S. Military and coalition forces evacuated an unprecedented 21,600 people from the kabul airport in just the last 24 hours. But pentagon officials still are not giving an exact number of americans who have gotten out. A source tells cnn an internal report shows 4,293 u. S. Citizens have been flown out of afghanistan since the flights began. Cnn s nick paton walsh is in doha following the evacuees. Cnn s oren lieberman is at the pentagon. We will start this hour with cnn s phil mattingly at the white house. What are we expecting to hear from the president in a few minutes? reporter: guys, i think yo
Thousands of americans and afghans are still desperately trying to get out while movement at the airport has picked up. That is good news. This is still the message from our state department and all caps warning in an email, safe passage to the airport is not assured. Now after saying the taliban was not going to take over the country and any sort of short order, was biden now saying in an interview that this was pretty much inevitable. The idea that somehow there s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i don t know how that happens. General jack keane is standing by with us. First, an update from lucas tomlinson live at the pentagon. Lucas? martha, there s now more than 5,000 u. S. Troops on the ground right now at the airport in kabul, including special operations forces. Another 1,000 troops are due in any day now and the pentagon is concerned about their safety. Isis and alqaeda is a planning factor. You wouldn t expect it to be otherwise. I m not going to talk about spec
Welcome to meet the press daily. President joe biden is cutting short his vacation. The president s remarks are scheduled for 3:45 p. M. Eastern time and it comes as pressure is mounting on him about the full withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. The u. S. Has been standing by the withdrawal. The president of afghanistan thread the country and the taliban took full control yesterday including occupying the presidential palace and even as the situation became increasingly desperate and chaotic. This was social media video from kabul s airport where thousands of afghans stormed the tarmac trying to get on to a plane. Any plane at all, to flee the country. The situation forced the u. S. Military to suspend their evacuation operations for several hours but they said that flights should be resuming again in the next several hours. Meanwhile defense secretary lloyd austin is sending an additional 1,000 troops to assist in security operations. Bringing the total to close to 6,000. After 20 y
The taliban is defeating afghan security forces at an alarming rate. Taking control of large swaths of the country. So far 17 provincial capitals, including kandahar with strategic and symbolic importance now fallen to the taliban. The pentagon is sending 3,000 u. S. Troops to help evacuate and as fears grow the taliban could soon seize the afghanistan capital. It is unraveling faster than president biden and many of his national security advisers anticipated. In fact, this is just over a month ago. Listen to the president. The jury is still out. But the likelihood there is going to be the taliban over running everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. We have every angle of this breaking story covered. Let s begin with nick paton walsh on the the latest in afghanistan. Nick, as the united states prepares to leave that country, thousands of american troops are headed back in. They re going to help with a really complicated and poten potentially dangerous process of eva
House correspondent, phil mattingly, and cnn senior international security editor, nick paton walsh. Let me start with you. 17 capitals now, at least 17, this is happening remarkably fast. In a week. And if you cast your mind back, victor, to literally how the last 20 years have often been about stalemates over a village in the middle of nowhere, an intense amount of u. S. Military power, the speed of this reversal is utterly staggering, faster frankly than when the u. S. Swept in, in 2001. The second and third largest cities in taliban s hands. Kandahar fell overnight. It feels like a couple of days ago now, remarkable that they have that hugely symbolic birthplace of their movement now in their hands. The question, what of kabul next? yes, there s mazari in the north, possibly the east, but it s very clear they have their target set on kabul, but do they want a lengthy and bitter street fight for a city of 6 million to 7 million people? many doubt that. They could possibly encircle i