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Officials Say, Explosion Outside Kabul Airport Appears to be Suicide Attack; U.S Embassy in Kabul Says, Reports of Gunfire at Airport; Officials Say, U.S. Personnel Among the Wounded in Kabul Airport Attack. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 26, 2021 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:00]

LT. GEN. H.R. MCMASTER (RET.), FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: And I think what's important about this, you may hear this is ISIS-K or whatever, but these terrorist organizations exist in an ecosystem along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and now all across Afghanistan, in which they share people and resources.

Siraj Haqqani is the military commander of the Taliban and he is a central figure in Al Qaeda. This is a myth, right, that the Taliban is separate from Al Qaeda and these other groups. I would you not be surprised if ISIS-K was used, this Kabul attack network was sued as a cutout for the Taliban so they can humiliate us on the way out and continue to play us. Because I don't think they think we're serious people, Jim.

I mean, so our weakness has encouraged them to be emboldened and, of course, they're going to have, as you mentioned, a safe haven support base access to resources that will make them extraordinarily dangerous as well as the ability now to say, hey, look, we're winning, right? We've established the Islamic Emirate in Khorasan, come to our cause, much like ISIS did when they recruited 30,000 fighters at the drop of a hat, right, once they took over territory the size of Britain, in Iraq and in Syria. And then, of course, we had to go back, Jim.

So now, what I would just ask, what was it worth it really? What would be a better outcome, a sustained commitment of a few thousand U.S. troops who were continuing to enable the Afghans to bear the brunt of this fight or this catastrophe that we're seeing now, right? We have this end the endless wars narrative, Jim, but, hey, guess what, this is an endless jihad that the enemies of all civilized are waging against us. And if we don't acknowledge that, we're putting ourselves at extraordinary high risk.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And one lesson of recent years with terrorism is that victory equals recruiting. When ISIS took over portions of Iraq and Syria, it was massive a magnet for recruits, the Taliban taking over territory and others in Afghanistan, already leading to a magnet for terrorists from around the world.

H.R. McMaster, thanks so much for joining us.

I do want to update you know because an alert has just gone out from the U.S. embassy in Kabul following this apparent attack at the Kabul airport. It says the following, that U.S. citizens who are at the Abby Gate, east gate or north gate, these are several main entry points to the airport there for civilians, should leave immediately. They go on to say there has been a large explosion at the airport and there are reports of gunfire. U.S. citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid airport gates at this time.

That is two new details, frankly, in that statement, one, that it was a large explosion, but, two, that there are reports of gunfire that followed. Oftentimes in plots like this, you have both. You have an explosion and then a follow-up of gunfire both to get responders but also others in the crowd. Although it's also possible that gunfire was response from U.S. forces at the gate as well.

Again, that is what we know at this point. We don't know at this point how many casualties and who are among those casualties, but we have asked both the U.S. military, the U.S. Marine corps, which has forces deployed there, and the Pentagon. We will continue to.

I want to go back to our Sam Kiley. He was at the airport that you're seeing live pictures of right now until yesterday, evacuated with many other journalists exactly because of threats of an attack like this one.

Sam, I know you continue to speak to people on the ground there, both Afghans, members of the U.S. military. What are you learning now?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is still very unclear indeed, Jim, exactly what has unfolded, but we do know that ISIS-K was conducting in the view of western intelligence services had an imminent plot. They did believe that it would be directed at crowds gathering at the gates. And they said, in all probability, it would be a suicide attack. We don't know yet whether it was suicide attack, but in that alert you just read there from the U.S. embassy there, they are saying that it was a substantial explosion and additional gunfire.

Social media has fired up inevitably with photographs that were seeking to verify of people have been injured there. We are still working on trying to find out the exact location of this. But this in, all probability, particularly if it is an ISIS attack, is what's known as a complex attack, in other words, the reports of gunfire, there have been reports of gunfire also in advance possibly of this attack.

Now, this is known as a complex attack. ISIS or terrorists around the world have a system of bombs followed up by secondary explosions very often or gun attacks, which intended to increase the level of carnage and sow even greater panic.

Now, the advantage for the coalition forces is that there doesn't appear to be any penetration of the base security, that that remains rock solid. So in all probability, the evacuation and drawdown of coalition troops will continue.

But this explosion has meant that a number of countries are ceasing their evacuations, notably Belgium and Holland have announced that they will not be conducting any more evacuations, not least, because they don't want the people there evacuating coming to the airport in a similar way that the Americans have put out a note saying, please don't come to the airport, precisely because of the danger of these secondary attacks.

[10:35:13]

It is a target of opportunity. It is very obvious that ISIS-K was likely to conduct this. I've just been in communication with a very senior NATO general who said, I'm surprised it took them this long. Just because they were there, the opportunities were there. This will be a serious blow to the Taliban's intended public relations to pose as a nation in -- a nascent nation capable of delivering security capable of taking its seat in the firmament of other nations and capable of negotiating sufficient security to allow this evacuation because this, whatever else it is, is a failure of Taliban securities, Taliban security that was supposed to be having its ring of steel around the airport.

The number of people trying to evacuate are way down because they have said Afghans can't go to the airport. They're not allowing the Afghans through it, yet, somehow, a suicide bomber or some kind of delivery device was able to get through, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Sam, thanks so much, and stand by for a moment because we do have new information in to CNN, this coming from the Pentagon spokesperson, John Kirby. He says the following, we can confirm that the explosion near the Abby Gate, as it's known, of the Kabul airport, has resulted in an unknown number of casualties. We will continue to update, not specifying there whether the casualties were Afghans or others, but confirming that there is an unknown number, plural, of casualties.

I should note one piece of important information again that Sam noted there, is it appears that flights for evacuation are continuing, at least one. We saw one C-17 jet take off during our air. That is significant. That would mean if they're able to continue that, that they have been able to maintain some sort of security cordon around the airport. That said, we do know that an attack was able to take place at one of those gates.

Kaitlan Collins is at the White House now. Kaitlan, we know the president has been briefed on this. Do we have any other reaction from the White House to this and any other indications about changes, if any, to plans?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there have been some changes to the schedule that are already happening that we believe is reflective of this breaking news. They just canceled the coronavirus briefing or actually postponed it.

It was supposed to start a few moments ago. We'll see if it changes. More things on the schedule here at the White House because, Jim, this morning the president was briefed at about 9:15 A.M. in the situation room but his national security team. Of course, that was when the reports of this exposition were just breaking. And so the president has now been briefed on that.

We are told, we saw the officials, including the defense secretary and the secretary of state arriving at the west wing about an hour-and-a- half-ago. But we are scheduled to see President Biden in about an hour from now, Jim, because he is supposed to be meeting with the new prime minister of Israel in the Oval Office. And reporters are scheduled to go into that event currently. So, we'll see if the president provides any update at that point given, we know, essentially, officials are still gathering information right now. And we're relying on these updates that we are getting from the Pentagon spokesman.

But, Jim, I will just say, this was the president's biggest concern. And this is when there was a lot of push from other world leaders and from even Democratic lawmakers to extend that deadline of 8/31 for the U.S. to remove all troops from Afghanistan. This was the primary reason that officials were going to the president and saying this isn't a good idea to extend this. Because they fear that the longer the U.S. is on the ground, the more likely an attack, like what we're seeing the reports of right now, was -- could happen.

And, of course, there must have been some new intelligence overnight given we saw the State Department update their alert to U.S. citizens are still in Kabul telling them that if they're outside some of these main gates outside the airport to get away and to go home and go back to where they were staying and not remain outside those gates, like you had seen so many hundreds and thousands of people doing. And that is something that seems to be reflected in intelligence from other major U.S. allies, including Australia, including the United Kingdom, who similarly updated their alerts warning about the threats that, of course, you reported on yesterday.

And so, clearly, there was a credible threat behind this. That has what led to this this morning. We're waiting to hear from President Biden though for anything else, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Kaitlan, thanks very much.

We have an urgent update now from our Barbara Starr at the Pentagon regarding who are among the casualties from this attack. Barbara, what are you learning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is all still evolving very rapidly. But now, CNN has three officials saying that there are U.S. personnel wounded in this attack at the airport in Kabul. Officially, the Pentagon is sticking to the word that they are -- they have an unknown number of what they call casualties.

[10:40:00]

But we are led to understand from three officials that at least some U.S. personnel are wounded in this. There are indications, of course, of a large number of Afghan people wounded in this attack. So, the information is very raw, very rough coming in.

We expect a briefing from the Pentagon later this morning. And, of course, as we have discussed, the most urgent thing for the U.S. military will be to get medical care to any of its personnel, State Department personnel, any U.S. personnel that may have been wounded in this attack, get them medical care, get them medevaced out of there to hospitals if their injuries are that serious, that they need that sort of level one trauma care. They will have to get them medevaced out of there as fast as they can. They have some minimal medical capability on base and to try and assist if at all possible with the Afghans.

But, again, the word is -- the words are very rapidly evolving here. These are very first reports. Nonetheless, three officials telling CNN, there are some U.S. personnel wounded in this attack, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, as you well know, medevac always a priority for U.S. forces when they're deployed, having the ability to get U.S. wounded to immediate medical care. And you and I both know, Barbara, having been with those forces, that that golden hour, right, the very first reaction and treatment can be lifesaving.

I will note we did see a Chinook helicopter flying across the screen at that side of the airport soon after this attack. But go ahead, go ahead, Barbara. What would be next steps then?

STARR: Well, you know, you raise the key point. I mean, after 20 years of war in the United States, military medical care, it is worth remembering, has advanced to significantly on the battlefield. The first responders, generally, are helicopters at the point of impact. They have trained medics on board. They even have -- they have developed over the years extensive ability to stop bleeding on site. They have especially treated bandages, especially treated equipment to stop traumatic bleeding if that is what has happened.

And now, we know that over the years, Army, Marines, medical and military personnel, they all have basic medical training but many of them have advanced medical training in this type of trauma care. And you're right, Jim, the U.S. military doesn't deploy anywhere in the world without that kind of care, even special forces these days often deploy with surgical care.

So there should be some very readily available care for them to be assessed for that initial treatment and to get those medevac airplanes in there, move them back to Kuwait, back to Qatar, move them on to Lundstuhl Army Hospital in Germany, if that is required. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves. We don't know the extent of the injuries but we do know that the U.S. military moves with medical care all of the time.

SCIUTTO: They do. And it is one reason why we've had relatively low death rate in combat in recent years, huge number of injuries that in the past folks might not have survived from. Barbara Starr, good to have you at the Pentagon. Stand by. I know you're learning more information.

I do want to re-up for our viewers the latest we have learned. Just in the last few minutes, we have learned that there are Americans, U.S. service members, personnel among the casualties from this attack on the Kabul airport at a gate to the Kabul airport that happened just in the last hour. The U.S. embassy has just put out an alert to Americans remaining in Kabul that a large explosion took place, that there were reports of gunfire that followed that could indicate what is known as a complex attack, where you have multiple means of attacking, causing casualties.

And we should note as well, as we reported yesterday that there was credible intelligence about the risk, plotting, planning capabilities for a terror attack exactly at one of the gates at the airport. U.S. have been very concerned about that in recent days and have been warning U.S. citizens away.

Sam Kiley left the Kabul airport yesterday with a number of journalists in part because of that terror risk. You saw and are aware of some of the medical facilities available there to treat the injured. Can you describe them?

KILEY: Well, in addition to the 82nd Airborne's medical capabilities, which would have come in with their main deployment is a brigade of soldiers and airmen and naval officers and all there, the Americans will have their own structures. But on top of that, there is a Norwegian military hospital there staffed by multinational expert doctors, all specialists in exactly the sorts of surgery that exist, sadly, specialized out of Afghanistan.

[10:45:12]

It is a fully pledged building, not a temporary military hospital. There are four intensive care beds. There is a ward with the capability of looking after 12 people. There are four operating theaters, scanners, CAT scanners, there's everything there that anybody would need so long as this is not a mass casualty event for the coalition. So the structures are not only there in terms of the U.S. military but they're there in terms of the coalition.

I'm not sure which -- nobody would know which direction any casualties are going to go and nor do we know necessarily that these are U.S. casualties. The Abby Gate is right next door to Camp Baron, which, up until now, has been the British base for the filtration of a huge number of evacuees, not just to be put on British planes but also to go into the main evacuation process.

Camp Baron is a little bit outside of the main area of the airfield, Jim. And if I can describe slightly, the Abby Gate is on and is precisely, as I was describing it earlier on, there are blast walls either side of the main road leading to what is called Abby Gate.

You turn to the right, effectively, you get into Camp Baron. You turn left, you can get into the main airfield. And that was a crossing point being used by the military but also by evacuees. So it was very much a focus of the efforts by Afghans in particular but also members of the international community trying to get out of Afghanistan, for getting into the air base, so one of the preferred, obvious targets for a group like ISIS-K. And then on the walls above it, on the perimeter there, the perimeter is guarded on the airfield side by Americans and on the British side by Brits. The Brits have been scaling back their operations and trying to find out exactly whether or not Camp Baron still exists as a British base. But there were multinational forces from all over the world in that area guarding the perimeter, not just Americans. But this is clearly a major blow to them all, particularly to Afghans but also to the coalition. Jim?

SCIUTTO: No question. And a demonstration of what has become an odd reality in recent weeks with the add vent of the U.S. withdrawal, and that is that the Taliban controls not only access to the airport for many Americans, but also Afghans who work for Americans, but it also, in effect, controls security around this airport, which is the one exit point, the one remaining exit point from that country for those who want to leave.

I do want to play some video that we had live on the screen a short time ago following the attack, following this explosion, and that is a U.S. military jet taxiing down the runway and taking off. An indication at least in that flight that at least one evacuation flight was able to get off after this attack, perhaps a sign that the operation can continue. You see the plane taking off there.

We also have Nick Paton Walsh. He is in Qatar where many of those evacuation flights have been heading. On your end, and you've seen thousands come in there in recent days, tens of thousands, in fact, any indication as to whether flights are still headed your way following this attack?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes. As you've shown, the jet there, it doesn't appear to be being a ceasing operations at that key evacuation runway. And I have to imagine, if you are dealing with a threat like this, the threat presumably to those U.S. personnel diminishes, the more of them and the Afghans who they are trying to help, you can keep flying off that base, provided you're sure that the airspace and the runway itself is secure.

Now, we have known that the capabilities of the insurgency have developed over time but I think that is all kind of baked into a U.S. operation on an airport like that in terms of defense moving forward. So, you would imagine that there would have been a pause, some moment in which they locked down, took stock of what necessarily has happened. But the question now, of course, is what happens to the remainder of the evacuation operation, indications that it may be destined to go until the end of tomorrow in its large scale.

The problem, of course, here is that this -- if it was indeed Abby Gate, and it does appear that there was a lengthy sewage canal in to which I've seen people images of them walking in sewage in the dark below razor wire, if that was the case, it would have been densely packed with individuals, but with individuals who, by all accounts, had a fairly slim chance of getting in. And there were still accounts of people who went to that gate, tried and then left later on in the day. It is unclear who the casualties are at this point. And one potentially saving grace for U.S. servicemen is that if that gate was not really functioning as much as I was led to believe it was, there may have been a minimal presence outside of the wire.

[10:50:04]

I saw videos from yesterday which appeared to show in a similar area some NATO personnel outside of the wire. But things have been changing exceptionally quickly at this stage.

Just one point that your previous guest, H.R. McMaster was making to do with the insurgency here, this is a very complex series of extremists. And while ISIS-K has been the terror group people have been pointing excessively, I think, for the last two or three days or a lot, over the last two or three days, they're also -- this sort of attack, a suicide attack, is something which we've seen a lot from, from a network called the Haqqanis. They are affiliated with Al Qaeda. They were sort of subsumed into the Taliban recently as part of some changes they made for five years ago.

So, looking within the possible candidates here, if indeed it turns out to have been a terror attack, and your reporting about a suicide attack makes that almost inevitable, there is not necessarily just one potential candidate here. And I should point out as well, it does appear, according to some reporting, the elements of the Haqqani network were provided the job of doing security around the airport as well.

So, this enormously fraught situation, which, to some degree, there were deep fears, we could have seen this before. But the crushing instead and the chaos seems to take over has potentially many different suspects. Jim?

SCIUTTO: No question, many groups capable. And, by the way, the Taliban, a group that carried out many, hundreds of terror attacks in that country themselves, that targeted Afghan civilians like this one appears to have targeted, as well as U.S. forces here. As we said earlier, that is the latest that the U.S. personnel are among those wounded, among the casualties from this attack at the airport.

Of course, the White House taking this very seriously. We learned a short time ago that President Biden has been briefed.

Our Kaitlan Collins at the White House, we're hearing now the president is in the situation room on this.

COLLINS: Yes, Jim. That is where he's monitoring all of these developments coming out of Afghanistan right now, including this explosion at the airport, as they are still trying to figure out what has happened and what the number of casualties are. The Pentagon has confirmed but they are still trying to determine the actual number and what the extent of the damage of this tack is.

And so, right now, we are told by a White House official that President Biden is monitoring this from the situation room with defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken. Those are the officials who briefed the president at about 9:15 A.M. this morning on the latest situation in Afghanistan. And that was right around when we were finding out about the explosion that had happened.

And so it appears he still is in the situation room monitoring right now this. Of course, whether or not we are still going to see from him at about 11:30 remains to be seen because that is when he's expected to be in the Oval Office with the new Israeli prime minister.

And I should note, Jim, there are a few other changes happening to the schedule here this morning as well, because there was supposed to be a COVID briefing update at 10:30. They have now postponed with no specific time. Just to give you a sense inside of the west wing, essentially, this is their number one focus right now.

SCIUTTO: Understood, understandably so. KAITLAN, I know it is early, but any indication as to the president changing plans as a result of this or sticking to that August 31st deadline? He has been consistent on sticking to that deadline.

COLLINS: I think that is the number one question for the White House right now is whether or not they are going to try to get these thousands of troops who are still on the ground out of there quicker than they had planned because right now, they were still working on evacuations. They were not prepared to get all of the thousands of troops out of there until closer to Tuesday.

That was something that the Pentagon confirmed this morning, saying those evacuations were going to continue. But whether or not the security situation on the ground changes that dynamic, it remains to be seen because President Biden, his biggest fear was a threat like this, an attack like this happening outside of the airport while there are still thousands of U.S. troops at that airport.

SCIUTTO: And an attack like this wounding U.S. service members, which the Pentagon is confirming to CNN that this attack has. Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thanks very much.

Just into CNN, we have the first images, the first photographs of the scene following this bombing here. Please take a moment here because I do want to warn you, they are disturbing, as you might expect. So take that moment and we're going to show some of them now.

These are some of the casualties, civilian casualties, it seems, taken away in wheelbarrows from the site of this attack taken by eyewitnesses there. You can see the injuries. It also gives you a sense of where this attack took place. This is a corridor, in fact, leading into the airport.

It is a very confined corridor. And those kinds of corridors, number one, they put people in a very confined space, makes for a very easy target for terrorists, but, two, it could also accentuate the effects of explosives because it is in a confined space. That is something terrorists are aware, it's something that terrorists take advantage of it. Our Nic Robertson is with me now. Nic, you and I have covered our share of attacks like this one around the world.

[10:55:03]

You and I were talking just yesterday about the danger and the level of concern among U.S. officials about an attack just like this one and it has now happened. And there are Afghan casualties, as we can see in those pictures there, and CNN is reporting there are U.S. military casualties. Tell us the significance of this.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: We knew the threat was there. We've been told the threat was there, and we've been told that the likelihood was that it would be a vehicle-borne explosive device. And that appears to be all the indicators here and it was going to target U.S. forces at the gate. That was the expectation. And the reason for targeting American forces was because the group want to create American casualties and they want to create, you know, fear and panic.

This -- the threat assess that we've all been hearing in the past 24, 48 hours that have been growing to the point that people have been told to stay away from the airport and not go close to the gates was all around the threat that was posed by a vehicle-borne explosive device.

And I think now, for the president, for others in the situation room, the consideration will now have to go to what other threats could there be from this group. Could they try to use gunfire, for example, to target aircraft taking off? We have no indication that they would intend to do that. But when you get into that discussion, you begin to say, okay, so, what caliber weapons do they have? Do they have the light machine guns? Yes, we know. Do they have heavy machine guns? Yes, we believe they have some of those. But what are the tools do they have at their disposal.

And, of course, the concern will then become do they have the sort of those personal packs, those what are known in a sort of military jargon, if you will, as man packs (ph), that they are launchers that can launch a missile to hit an aircraft.

Now, there is no indication and no evidence to support that they have that definitely, that they would intend to use it. And, remember, the threat assessment that was received was very clear, that these all become considerations. And I think that has to be as this group has clearly demonstrated, whomever they are. We know that ISIS-K was believed to be the threat, and we know that they possessed good skills in suicide attacks, so that is been their M.O. until now.

But what else potentially do they have in their arsenal, and, of course, that raises serious questions.

SCIUTTO: Well, the thought occurred to me when I saw one of the flights take off in recent days and throw back the flares, as planes do, as a defense mechanism against any sort of heat-seeking missile. It could be precautionary but relevant to what you brought up. Nic, it occurs to me as I look at the photos of the Afghans wounded in this attack, and to be clear, we now know that U.S. service members were also among the casualties in this attack. But when I look at the Afghans, Nic, I think of what they will be left to after U.S. forces leave here. The Taliban running the country, the Taliban, a group that has carried out their own terror attacks, many -- dozens of them, through the years, targeting both civilians and U.S. service members. Is this the future that Afghans have to look forward to?

ROBERTSON: It is not a pretty prospect in any way at all, Jim. I mean, if we just take the individual casualties on their way to some kind of medical treatment, the Taliban, we know that their leadership is going to lead to a downturn in the economy, and that means every facet of live for Afghans, be it buying food, be it getting medical treatment in hospitals, where there will be less material available to support them and help them and repair them in this case, that is all in the future. The potential for unpredictable attacks like this, this clearly remains.

But I think the big thing on everyone's mind is, particularly for intellectuals, particularly for human rights activists, particularly for women, particularly for female journalists, particularly for anyone who doesn't hold to the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam is a real concern about their rule.

We learned last night from a source that even senior figures, former politicians, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the former chief executive, the former president, Hamid Karzai, who had until the past couple of days their own security detail and their own vehicles and now essentially holed up in a house without transport and without any of their own security protection. Many vulnerable, many Afghans from top to bottom of society will be feeling exceptionally vulnerable.

SCIUTTO: And that is an indication of how the Taliban works, if the hope is for them to be a reasonable partner for Afghan allies, other members of former of the Afghan government or the U.S., that one indication there.

I'm Jim Sciutto. Thanks for being with us. That is Nic Robertson with me there, these last two hours, as we brought you the breaking news.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan picks up our coverage right now.

[11:00:03]