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message of the u.s. government, the evacuations are continuing, and the harsh reality for many afghans on the ground. they cannot reach the airport that is the country s only emergency exit. this morning all access points to the airport in kabul have effectively been cut off. a source tells cnn there are about 150 american citizens remaining in afghanistan. those people need military escorts to the airport, and u.s. forces are now racing against the clock to get them out safely. complicating all of this, credible reports of an imminent terror attack just outside the airport gates. in the last 24 hours, a total of 13,400 people have been evacuated from the country, some 5,100 by the u.s. this is down from the 19,000 evacuated in total yesterday. this is new video obtained by cnn. it captures the desperation outside the kabul airport. some afghans have been waiting for days and nights on end, hoping for a slim chance to get through those taliban checkpoints and the threat ....
decision must be made today in order to provide enough time to withdraw the 5800 troops on the ground in kabul, as well as equipment and weapons. minutes from now, leaders of the group of seven nations are set to hold a virtual meeting where u.s. allies are expected to ramp up pressure on the president to extend that deadline. we are covering this story from all angles, like no one else can. let s begin this morning on the ground in kabul where that dramatic increase in evacuations is unfolding as we speak. and sam kiley is there live. sam, tell us what you re seeing there. this is an enormous number of flights in the past 24 hours. reporter: yeah, it s a gigantic number and they have been continuing all day today. of course as well, jim. so, as of about two hours ago, military officials here were telling us the u.s. alone had flown out some 9,000 evacuees. when i was on the main area where the refugees and the evacuees were gathering yesterday, jim, there were about ....
because there is nowhere to receive them. i ll talk about just bottlenecks and i think i talked about that earlier. as we those that depart kabul and get to those staging bases within u com or cent com aor, we are ensuring that we place evacuees in one of the 14 locations to prevent a bottleneck sos that our increased through-put, increase that number that they re able to hold there, cent come and u com are continuing to coordinate together and with the joints staff in trans com of where to put those evacuees to allow flights to leave kabul. those on kabul, there is no constraint of allowing flights to leave today. we expect the through-put that we saw in the last two days to be able to continue with no bottleneck and others. we continue to manage that on an hourly, minute basis to ensure in a we know where to fly people to. do you have enough people in the airport compound now in kabul i don t have the exact number. but there are evacuees on kabul right now b ....
hello. there was a protest in kabul today. 200 people came out near the presidential palace carrying afghan flags. it was quickly put down. the taliban have moved to crush any early opposition to their rule putting the entire city of khost in the south east of the country under indefinite curfew. but it is further evidence that while thousands are still trying to get out of the country, there are many left behind who will fight for a say in how its run. right now the focus remains on the airport. the pentagon says it has evacuated 7000 people since saturday and another 6000 are at the airport, processed and waiting for flights. but outside it is becoming harder for people to get through. and as people scramble to leave the country, the united nations refugee agency says the number of people displaced within afghanistan threatens to become a humanitarian crisis. from kabul our correspondent secunder kermani. this is crowd control, taliban style. 0utside this is crowd control, ....
i m kim brunhuber. this is cnn newsroom. president biden is tripling down on his decision to withdraw american forces from afghanistan by month s end despite the mayhem that has ensued after the taliban took over the country. during a tense interview with abc news, job said he doesn t believe the pullout has failed so far and when asked if it could have been handled better, he said no. biden then suggested the chaos in kabul was inevitable, but that goes against what he said last month. listen here. back in july you said a taliban takeover was highly unlikely. was the intelligence wrong or did you downplay it? i think there was no consensus. you go back and look at the intelligence reports, they said that it was more likely to be sometime by the end of the year. you didn t put a time line out, you just said flat out it is highly unlikely the taliban would take over. yeah. well, the question was whether or not the idea that the taliban would take over was p ....