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Pentagon: "Number of U.S. Servicemembers Killed in Kabul Attack; New Graphic Video Shows Aftermath of Kabul Terror Attack; Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) Discusses Attack in Kabul, Evacuations. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 26, 2021 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They can see a great deal about what's going on. But you can't tell a suicide bomber with a backpack from an evacuee with a backpack unless they're physically searched.

That was supposedly the job of the Taliban that had increased the capability of the perimeter in order to stop Afghans getting to the airport. They failed, clearly, to stop bombers and other attackers getting to the airport, it would appear.

But again, no country in the world can boast it's completely immune to terrorist attacks. Least of all, a completely chaotic, nascent government in a capitol city they've taken on. that they themselves have a reputation for terror themselves in any case.

Indeed, they've conducted many terrorist attacks themselves.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes.

KILEY: The Taliban, in the past, in Kabul itself.

So the only opportunity I think for the Americans to accelerate the movement of Americans out is to have Special Forces-type operations, probably in cooperation with the Taliban, covert operations, very low profile, probably at night in which they can shoot out, grab people in.

But that can only be done with the cooperation of the Taliban. That may well be forthcoming. The Taliban want to see this August 31st deadline met as much as the Americans do -- Anderson?

COOPER: Yes. Sam, appreciate it.

I want to bring former U.S. Air Force officer in the surge in Afghanistan, Jodi Vittori. She's a retired lieutenant colonel. She co- chairs the Global Politics and Security Program at Georgetown University. Colonel Vittori, I appreciate your time.

Your reaction to the news now from Pentagon, a number of U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan?

JODI VITTORI, RETIRED LIEUTENANT COLONEL, U.S. AIR FORCE & CO-CHAIR, GLOBAL POLITICS AND SECURITY PROGRAM, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Obviously, as a veteran myself who served in Afghanistan, I'm absolutely devastated to hear what's happened.

I remember the sounds of the suicide bombers when I was in Kabul. I can just only manage.

As a veteran and as someone trying to get colleagues and friends out of Afghanistan and people with prior SIV and other priority visas, that door has probably slammed shut now.

They were already desperate to get there. With the crowds, they couldn't get there. With the Taliban stopping those trying to get out, it was nearly impossible to get out.

It looks like the door has shut. It's a tragic day everywhere around and everybody who served the United States, the troops that were there.

The Afghan civilians trying to get out, many of whom who probably served us loyally for years as SIV visa holders and so forth.

COOPER: We hear from the administration that as many as 100,000 -- I've heard different figures, anywhere from 80,000 to up to 100,000 or so people in all have been evacuated. That's a large number whatever the final number turns out to be.

What do you think happens now? I mean, if having people at the gates is no longer an option, how do you get the remaining Americans out? And do you think that means no more Afghans getting out at all?

VITTORI: It's difficult. Your experts have talked about the hit-and- run missions to grab people. You can try to helicopter people in. That's got its own threats because helicopters are very as a vulnerable, especially in an urban environment.

Trying to send people to land borders, they've got to get through so many Taliban checkpoints.

If you've seen the pictures, for example, that border crossing looks just as hideous as Kabul airport did.

The odds are going to be very, very difficult. It's going to require some important negotiation with the Taliban.

Because really, to a large extent, other than some of those quick hit- and-run-grab people, sort of tactics, the ball is in their court.

COOPER: You said the ball is in their court, meaning the Taliban? VITTORI: Pardon, yes, in the Taliban's court. Other than small part of

the airport we control, they control the land mass of Afghanistan right now. And they control the people in Afghanistan right now.

And they're the ones that decide who comes in and who doesn't, who gets to the airport, who gets to other airports, who gets to the land borders, ultimately.

COOPER: Minutes ago, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat, Bob Menendez, says we can't trust the Taliban with American security.

With the deadline five days away, at this point, does the U.S. really have a choice?

It seems like any of the options, whether it's, as you called, snatch- and-grab or going out with the cooperation of the Taliban or even ultimately commercial airlines reopening the airport, reopening, Americans being allowed to leave, it all requires the cooperation of the Taliban?

VITTORI: Yes. This is where American leverage is going to be crucial. We only have a few lines of leverage left, frankly, that we can use with the Taliban if we're not willing to use physical violence to expand perimeters.

[13:35:05]

And you've gone into why that would be difficult and cost so many more American lives to do that.

We have leverage with the Taliban because they do want some international -- they want international aid coming in. About 80 percent of the budget was foreign assistance. That propped up the Afghan budget.

As that assistance disappears, the Taliban would really like to have some of that foreign aid and top up for the budget back.

They would like international recognition, and the trade and travel ties that go with it.

The Taliban in the 90s got their start in a lot of ways their street credit and backing from Pakistan by opening up the various checkpoints that Afghan war lords closed off and opening up trade again from Pakistan through Afghanistan into Iran and Central Asia.

So the recognition and the travel and the trade ties would be helpful.

And then we do have one other potential area of leverage. And that is the fact that, not necessarily thee rank-and-file, but many of the senior members of the Taliban are actually mafia organizations with significant financial interests.

And those financial interests, the mafia side, the drug trafficking, consumer goods, moving gold, chromite, so forth, those involve significant money laundering chains.

And those chains will presumably be outside of Afghanistan predominantly because nobody wants to keep their money in Afghanistan. There are no solid financial institutions and it's a fragile state.

So that means if they're outside of Afghanistan, those might be assets we can locate. Assets we can freeze.

And one of the advantages there, of course, is that would affect senior Taliban leadership and might be able to use a combination of carrot and sticks to get them to work and protect American citizens and let SIVs out and let American citizens out and others out, our allies get out as well.

COOPER: Jodi Vittori, no easy options.

I appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

VITTORI: Thank you for having me today.

COOPER: We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:41:28]

COOPER: As the U.S. is racing to withdraw people out of Afghanistan, terrorists strike outside the Kabul airport. There's a lot we don't know at this hour, a lot of incoming reports.

We know there have been two explosions. And the Pentagon confirms a number of U.S. servicemembers have been killed in the attack. We don't know the exact number. A number of servicemembers are also being treated for their wounds.

We're going to show you a graphic video of the aftermath of the attack. It's a cell phone camera video. We're not going to blur the images this time. We did earlier.

We're going to show you the reality of what has happened in Afghanistan outside, near one of the gates outside Kabul airport.

I want to warn you, some of the images are graphic and very disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Piles of people dead and wounded in what some of our colleagues described as, essentially, a sewage canal, which, is on either side of it, there are blast walls, as well as a road that people were standing on.

I want to bring in our senior international correspondent, Sam Kiley, in Qatar and international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, as well.

Sam, the video which you have seen previously, which we just showed, horrific.

Talk a little bit about where that video, where we believe it is located, the spot it's located, and explain what the situation for the people there would have been prior to the attack.

KILEY: Well, from the video, we can tell that at least these dead and injured are in the drainage canal or sewage canal that runs alongside the main road up to what's called Abbey Gate.

That's where U.S. forces have been sporadically allowed people in. And across the road from where the other blast is reported to have come from, the Baron Hotel, which until recently, it's the base of British operations for the air assault brigade there, also conducting evaluations across the road, into the Abbey Gates.

Just south of the Abbey Gate, but parallel, there are gaps in the blast walls where you have visibility onto the drainage ditch. It's wide, as you can see from the images, and deep.

Now, whether these people were blasted into the ditch from the road itself or whether the attack was conducted in the ditch, in both cases, the concrete walls of the ditch or the blast walls of the road would have concentrated the blast.

[13:45:00]

Now, on top of that, the road and the ditch, at least until the point at which the ditch is actually full of slurry and then including that point, have been full of human beings.

Full of people pressing up, trying to get through, trying everything they possibly could to get into the Abbey Gate and get away from Taliban rule in their country.

And that is the location, in all certainty, that these American casualties, we now know from the Pentagon, several dead and several injured, will have been wounded.

Because they are exposed at that point. They cannot be anything other than exposed in order to conduct their humanitarian role of filtering people.

Albeit, from the top of the blast wall, they're communicating, looking down from that blast wall with people on the ground desperate to get out. That is how people have been able to get in. In ones and twos.

These very difficult choices being made by servicemen and women whose main role is securing the perimeter of the airport. These are usually paratroopers or Marines.

These are frontline combat troops having to make life-and-death decisions effectively for the Afghan population that very soon in their minds, they knew America was going to effectively leave behind. So already tense moments. And now we know that four soldiers or

service people have been killed as a consequence of this blast.

Now, the blast walls should or would have protected many more from getting more casualties, assuming this blast went off at ground level.

The blast was also drive -- the force of the explosions upwards. And because these servicemen and women are not in the normal posture of being behind and below the top of the blast wall but looking over it, they're that much more vulnerable.

They're doing the right thing. They're trying to save lives, not take them which is the normal training for a soldier.

COOPER: Yes.

Nic Robertson, in terms of -- still a lot we don't know at this hour.

Senior U.S. official saying that, at this point, the U.S. believes ISIS-K, an affiliate group of ISIS was responsible for this, but more information is still needed.

It's hard to see -- I mean, in terms of options moving forward for the United States in this evacuation, it doesn't feel like there are a lot of good questions.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The big questions will come after the evacuation is completed. How did we get into this position where we were dependent on the Taliban to provide security?

We know the fundamental answer is the Taliban sprung to power and took over the country much more quickly. But what were the flawed decisions that were made to get to that point?

And part of those flawed decisions, I think, we're going to begin to see more conversation about it, is the amount of trust that was placed in the Taliban, the trust.

The one piece of that trust that they kept was their promise, until now, to be able to protect U.S. service personnel.

I think the Taliban obviously cannot control and protect everyone in the country all the time, but they did manage to make sure that U.S. service personnel weren't targeted by their fighters.

But the other promise that the Taliban made was to negotiate with the Afghan government. They fought their way to power. That was not the expectation on the U.S. side.

And the other promise the Taliban made was that their territory would not be used to attack overseas countries, the United States.

Explicitly, al Qaeda, the reason we've gone into Afghanistan in the first place, would not perpetrate more attacks on the United States.

And people I'm talking to at the moment who have had decades of experience of dealing with the Taliban, of understanding their messaging among each other, the way that these people I'm talking to feel that the United States and others have been duped by the Taliban.

Really feel it's a moment where we must get tougher with the Taliban. That we cannot accept their word at face value. We never did. But we did. And this is why we're at where we're at.

There's a sense of, how does the situation move forward? That's why I say it's after the evacuation.

Because essentially we're talking about the future relationship with the Taliban and trying to find a way to build a society in Afghanistan, a government that is not just the Taliban. These are the longer-term issues.

But to your point, the evacuation right now, there really are no good options. You've been discussing that. It does seem to be the airport is the only way realistically.

And the only remaining question is, how many more people can you bring into the fold and get to the airport?

It appears to -- it appears to me as if some kind of extension beyond the 31st of August. Certainly, President Biden created the scope to say things had to keep going positively to meet that deadline and there were contingencies.

[13:50:17]

It seems very hard to meet that deadline in a safe way at this time -- Anderson?

COOPER: Nic Robertson, Sam Kiley, appreciate it.

I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Obviously, a tragedy. U.S. servicemembers killed in this Kabul attack, others wounded. Large numbers of Afghans have been killed and wounded as well.

What happens now in terms of the evacuation?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Well, first, Anderson, you know, it has been an extremely difficult day. Not an unpredictable day, unfortunately.

You know, we've had several classified meetings over the last couple of days and so this is not something that we were unaware of in that regard.

I think that -- look, over the last few months we -- the first objective was to get 60,000 individuals out, both American citizens focused on first, and then, of course, our SIVs and other Afghans.

We, up to date, have gotten close to 100,000 out, which is tremendously important.

I feel confident that, as Secretary of State Blinken indicated, that there are still procedures that are going to take place after the 31st to make sure that all of those American citizens that want to leave will be taken care of so that they're not going to be left behind in that regard. There's plans that will be utilized in that regard.

So I think that it is clear that the president of the United States is correct in his assessment that where the danger lies right now is those of us that are still on the ground.

So, therefore, we have to get them out. And they're doing that. And we will continue to get them out either past the 31st, but there are plans arranged to do just that.

COOPER: It sounds like, though, are you in favor -- I mean, it sounds like it is going to be difficult to continue to have Americans showing up outside the gates trying to fight their way through the crowds at the Kabul airport at the very least.

Are there alternative ways? I mean, we have heard about alternative ways to try to get some Americans. I mean, how do -- if there's 1,500 Americans, I don't know how many of them want to leave or are accessible, but how will Americans be able to get out?

MEEKS: Well, again, I think that as indicated by Secretary Blinken that those that we know of we were able to get in contact with them. So, therefore, there will be information, just as the information that took place to say that -- to stay away from the airport, stay away from the gates, don't go there because security was in jeopardy.

There's mechanisms to stay in contact with them so that they can -- when it is time to get them out, they can get out safely and not just coming to the gate and waiting.

By and large, a lot of individuals that were at the gate and, unfortunately, they rushed the gate. Some of the images, the terrible images that we've seen, they've rushed the gate.

And Americans, if you look at the intelligence, they've been asking folks and saying to many of them, don't come to the gate, that security is a concern.

So that's kind of a continuation of communication. It is tremendously important.

And I know that, as I said, there are mechanisms in place to try to make sure that communication is there so that we can evacuate them in a safe manner as we have done with close to 100,000 already.

COOPER: You called last week for a look at essentially what went wrong. What exactly would you hope, what questions do you want answered?

MEEKS: Well, we're still going, as a Foreign Affairs Committee, we will have our oversight hearings. We are planning on doing that sometime in the future.

But our focus right now has been to make sure that we get as many Americans and SIVs and Afghans, who we had committed to, out of Afghanistan.

That has been the focus of the briefings that we've had over the last couple of days.

You know, there was a major briefing for all of the members of the Congress, the House of Representatives. And then, we had a subsequent follow-up for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

I now will be looking to do further briefings and updates with the administration. They've been available and cooperative in that regard, and so we probably will do more of that.

[13:55:00]

So my focus right now is to make sure that we get as many, if not all, American citizens, SIVs, Afghan -- vulnerable Afghans, who put their lives on the line for us, to get them out there and to make sure that there are plans to get them out.

Those that are not out by the 31st, to make sure they're out thereafter.

COOPER: Chairman Meeks, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

MEEKS: Thank you.

COOPER: Joining me CNN global affairs analyst, Kim Dozier.

Kim, you have been talking to people trying to evacuate from Afghanistan today. What are you hearing?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, I was speaking to a family that was at the Baron Hotel and then was directed to go to Abbey Gate by a network of current and former U.S. officials in touch with the military on the ground.

And the Baron Hotel, in the hour it took them to get there, to the gate of the Baron Hotel, where they were directed to go, the task force inside of Western officials, first shrank and then collapsed, leaving a growing crowd of Afghans outside.

That drew the Taliban's attention. So the Taliban moved in and started beating people outside that hotel.

In the interim, this Afghan family had been told, we know about the warning but you need to get to Abbey Gate. It is briefly going to be opened and we put your names on a list at the front, you just have to get to the Marines.

So they pushed their way through a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands of people. Got to the Marines. And while the Marines had taken some people earlier, who were on the same high-risk list, something changed.

Maybe they had been warned about the rising threat, but they stopped taking anyone. The family I spoke to said they even saw Afghans with American passports pushing to the front. The Marines wouldn't let them in.

I guess they were trying to get everyone to leave that gate. It didn't work.

This man then got notice by the Taliban, who were near the U.S. troops at the opening to the gate. He and his eldest sons got beaten very badly, clubbed. So they retreated. They've gone back into hiding.

That's happened with some other senior Afghan officials who were directed to take the same route. They were actually told, try one last time to go to the Abbey Gate this morning. Thank God they didn't.

COOPER: It is some of the horrific choices that, you know, Marines, soldiers on the wall are having to make.

Obviously, there's a, you know, security threat, intelligence about a potential suicide bombing, the idea of letting people, Afghans into the perimeter through the gate, it takes on a whole other level of threat.

Do you know what is going to happen to this family that you have talked to?

DOZIER: Well, you know, I sent them before -- I warned them first but I sent them the video we have just shown. And the father of the family said, "We were standing right there, we would all be dead."

They have decided just to take their chances with the Taliban government because there's no way to get money out of Western Union, to get enough money to pay their way out.

I'm hearing from a lot of former Afghan translators, even Afghan officials who are either having to try to blend in or trying to figure some way, if they're really high profile and really recognizable, some other way to get smuggled out.

COOPER: That's going to be extraordinarily difficult. I mean -- you know, I think a lot of Afghan officials probably tried to leave very early on when there were still commercial flights out.

Do you have the sense of how many Afghans who have, you know, SIVs or other reasons to leave are actually still there? Do we know?

DOZIER: It has to be in the thousands. I mean, I personally know of four SIVs who can't get out. They've got all of their paperwork. They tried the gate several times around the airport. And now they're afraid, especially -- that was before the suicide attacks.

There have been various different -- a lot of disinformation floating around where people will be told, hey, SIV applicants, go to this hotel, we're gathering you together to bus you into the airport. And then people who are cited in those missives say, we didn't go to the hotel, we didn't send it out, it is a trap. It is a very confused time.

Meanwhile, the other thing happening is, yes, these people are trying to hole up in various safehouses around the city.

But the Taliban has started going, not necessarily from house to house, but they're checking in across neighborhoods, either places that they've been told former senior officials or prominent journalists lived.

[13:59:54]

I know of one case where they even ransacked a former senior official's house and questioned all of his cleaning people to see if they could find out where he had gone.