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Evacuations Push Ahead; Biden Vows Retribution; Navy Confirms Sailor Killed in Kabul; Evacuations Continue in Kabul; Americans Indicate they Want Evacuated; Thousands Evacuated to Germany. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired August 27, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The clock is ticking for those looking to evacuate from Afghanistan. And CNN's coverage will continue right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning to you. What a harrowing last 24 hours. I'm Jim Sciutto.

The threat is still out there. Right now the U.S. military pushing forward with evacuations in Afghanistan. This in the face of more imminent terror threats to the airport. Pentagon officials say the next attack could come at any moment. This after two explosions ripped through crowds outside Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. This was just 24 hours ago as we were on the air.

We now know that at least 13 U.S. service members and more than 90 Afghan civilians were killed. Many of them children.

Flags are now at half-staff at the White House and on Capitol Hill this morning, honoring the fallen Marines and Navy service members killed in that blast.

President Biden is in The Situation Room right now. He has vowed retribution for those lives lost.

This is the scene outside the airport this morning. Quite different. Empty streets. Just 100 hours left or so on the clock as President Biden remains committed to his August 31st withdrawal deadline.

About 12,500 people were evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hour period despite that attack on the airport. The U.S. has removed in total more than 100,000 people since August 14th. U.S. coalition partners helping as well.

We have a team of reporters around the world covering this from all angles.

Let's begin this morning with CNN's Nick Paton Walsh in Doha.

Nick, those evacuation flights, they continued. We saw one take off virtually moments after the attack.

Tell us the situation at the airport now. What is the pace? How many people are still getting out?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, the focus, as I understand it from a source directly familiar with the situation on the airport, the focus now is getting the last-minute special access requests onto the airport. But, quote, they're unsure how many they can get in because so much Taliban coordination is required.

Now, on the airport, as of this morning, essentially evacuees waiting to leave were numbered 4,500. Now, that isn't a reflection of the total that could be taken off today because when people come on they are quite quickly flown off. But the source also said that the non- competent evacuation operation feels like it is winding down.

And I should point out that the Department of Defense and White House have strongly suggested that they'll continue evacuating people until the end, but they did also reflect there will come a point when these large scale evacuations are less possible because there will be less military facilities there to enable them.

Another issue that's deeply in the hearts, I think, of U.S. diplomats that served at the embassy in Kabul, those local Afghan staff that worked at the embassy, I understand from this source that most of them are on their way to the airport or were expected to be brought to the airport today. Essentially, wrapping up that part of the U.S. commitment to those who they need to find inside of Kabul.

On top of that as well the question, of course, is how many American citizens are still out there. The source I spoke to said, look, if you're an American citizen and you're not already at the airport, then you do seriously have to wonder whether they're interested in leaving at all.

I should point out, the State Department, yesterday, gave a number of a thousand who they were still looking at as potential departees. Although they said that the vast majority were making plans to leave. It was really unclear quite what the status of those thousand were from their statement.

Moving forward, it's important to remember, too, Jim, that the gates are still closed according to this source, which significantly limits the number of individuals that can get onto the base at this stage. So the issue now is whether these escorted groups can continue to bring people in and how they can deal with the persistent issue of people who think they've been allowed in but are still in buses circling the airport in these final, important, closing hours, Jim.

SCIUTTO: They are. And scary hours for many of those people trying to get out and who will be left behind.

Nick Paton Walsh in Doha, thanks very much.

President Biden had this message for those responsible for the deadly blast. We will find you.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins me now from the White House. And, Jeremy, this is operational. Of course, the White House is not

going to get into classified planning, et cetera. But have you learned any details about who, where, how, when, what exactly are the targets that the president said that he's asked the U.S. military to develop for him?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Jim, we don't have those details yet. But it is clear that the U.S. believes that ISIS-K, ISIS in the Khorasan, is responsible for these attacks. We have yet to get the official, full determination of that from the U.S. intelligence community, but that appears to be where the White House's head is at right now.

[09:05:04]

We know that the president is still actively monitoring the threat in Kabul because even as this attack took place yesterday, this morning, a senior White House officials telling me the threat is out there. It is still heightened. That is why the president right now is in the situation room with his national security team getting updated on that threat and he will continue to be updated on it throughout the day.

But the message from the president, in terms of how the U.S. will respond to those terrorists who carried out that attack yesterday was unmistakably clear.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this, we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And so that is one of the focuses of the U.S. military at the moment is nailing down that intelligence and also beginning to make those plans for a potential strike or some kind of way to get retribution for the attack that happened yesterday.

The other focus is, of course, these ongoing evacuations, more than 12,000 people evacuated out of Kabul by the U.S. and its coalition partners over the last 24 hours. The president vowing that those evacuations will continue even as that threat still remains. But he is sticking to that August 31st deadline.

Again, all of this motivated by the ongoing threat on the ground.

The last thing that I can tell you, Jim, is that the president is going to be contacting the families of those 13 U.S. service members who were killed yesterday in that complex attack. That will happen after those next of kin notifications, which are conducted in-person by military officials. Once those are complete, I'm told by a senior official that the president will then begin contacting those families. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Those will be difficult conversations.

Jeremy Diamond, at the White House, thank you.

We are learning more about the 13 U.S. service members killed in those attacks on Kabul.

CNN's Barbara Starr has been covering this from the Pentagon.

And, Barbara, I know you've dealt with soldiers for many years, as have I. I couldn't shake the feeling these last 24 hours that these were soldiers, Marines, I should say, as well as a Navy service member with families that -- who thought they were going to get them home in days.

What more can you tell us about them?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, of course, what the Pentagon is doing is contacting next of kin, notifying them, and we, as always, will learn the identities of the fallen once all of the next of kin notification is complete.

As you say, Jim, the one development this morning, the Navy has put out a statement acknowledging that one of the fallen is indeed a Navy sailor.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: The Pentagon, in terms of the threat going forward from ISIS- K, has said in very clear terms, it's not gone away. It is still, I believe the word they're using, imminent. What more are you learning?

STARR: Well, I think they had -- their feeling is they have to assume it's imminent. Nobody thinks ISIS-K is exactly going to go away. So what do you do about security as we wind down towards the end here, towards Tuesday?

Well, the first interesting thing to contemplate is right now at some point the U.S. has to decide when it turns the airport gates over to the Taliban because U.S. troops will be packing up and getting on airplanes. So the Taliban, at some point in the coming couple of days, will take control of the gates. When that last U.S. military aircraft rolls down the runway, it will be the Taliban who are in control of the airport.

And just yesterday the top U.S. commander talked a bit about how they're trying to get the Taliban to tighten up security.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. KENNETH F. MCKENZIE, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We've reached out to the Taliban. We told them, you need to continue to push out the security perimeter. We've identified some roads that we would like for them to close. They've identified that they will be willing to close those roads because we assessed the threat of a suicide-borne vehicle threat is high right now. So we want to reduce the possibility of one of those vehicles getting close. And so we're actually moving very aggressively to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So here we are as we come down to the final days of 20 years of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Security in the coming hours and days will, in fact, depend on the Taliban guarantee, promise, if you will, of safe passage and maintaining security at the airport.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: A terrorist organization in control of an airport. It's remarkable.

Barbara Starr, thanks so much.

Right now evacuations are ongoing despite it all at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

CNN's Tom Foreman, he's at the magic wall to break down just how dangerous the conditions are there.

It's important, Tom, for folks to see this, see the layout. I've been to that airport many times. It is no easy job to secure it.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is not. And yet, if you think about what Nick described, what Barbara described there, what you've seen yourself, what has happened is this has basically been converted, as many of our analysts have said, into a fortress.

[09:10:10]

As people have streamed up from Kabul down here, past the Taliban checkpoint, and spread out along these blast walls, trying to see if they can get in, specifically to this area which is where the terminal part of it is, to see if they can possibly get on their way, what they're running into is really, at this point, a very much sort of a sealed entrance there, and with good reason because if you look at the flow of people coming in there, these are thousands and thousands of people who have pressed right up against the barriers, desperate to get out, even as officials are determined to say they have to control that flow through those very few gates, which now it seems not entirely clear whether they're open or closed or more likely, as the Pentagon described it, opening very briefly, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And we have seen evidence today that those roads, those alley ways far emptier than they were yesterday in light of this.

So we've heard a lot about this Abbey Gate. Who would use that in particular for access to the airport, and also how are remaining Americans getting into the airport? FOREMAN: This was the site of the explosion yesterday, the Abbey Gate,

and then the second explosion, at the Baron Hotel, not far away.

This area, from what we've been hearing over and over again, has been used by Brits, in particular, down here, Europeans, and also some Americans and some Afghans as they have shifted around where they wanted to bring in. The reason it has been a threat has been specifically because it gets into that last moment and there troops have to come in direct contact with these people trying to get through.

As you've said many times before, Jim, the terrorists only have to succeed once. These troops have had to succeed thousands and thousands of times, vetting people, bringing them through and checking them.

So when we think about what Barbara was talking about a minute ago, what we're really talking about there is this notion of saying, how do you reach out and instead of having all the protection be here, how do you work with the Taliban or other -- whatever you call the authority there now, to somehow push it out further? How do you shut down some of these other entrance ways that possibly form a threat there while you still try to maintain some kind of trickle of people through there and get people off the ground?

SCIUTTO: Yes. All the while relying on a terrorist organization, in effect, to do that.

FOREMAN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So the other terrorist organization, which has claimed responsibility for yesterday's attacks, ISIS-K, or Islamic State in the Khorasan, how are the U.S. and I suppose its partners of convenience, the Taliban, trying to do that?

FOREMAN: Yes, and it may be partners of inconvenience, I suppose, considering how things operate.

I think that's a great question, Jim, and I think it goes back to exactly what the general was talking about a minute ago. Somehow they have to get a little bit of separation here because that's what will allow them to sort of control that flow better, instead of being right up on top of people. They're still going to have to do this at some point, the direct contact with anybody who's still going to get through there. But if they can keep that separation and keep them back a little bit, then maybe they can keep vehicle attacks away. Maybe they have a better chance to assess individuals before they get this close.

It's a big if right now, but we'll have to see, Jim.

SCIUTTO: It is a big if.

Tom Foreman, thanks so much for breaking it down.

Ahead, a question, so exactly how many Americans are left in Afghanistan? An update on efforts to bring every last citizen home and those who may choose to stay behind.

Plus, President Biden has vowed retaliation against ISIS-K, to hunt them down. What exactly does that look like? We're going to discuss with a Republican congressman, as well as veteran of the war in Afghanistan, Adam Kinzinger.

And, millions of Americans could soon be facing eviction after a ruling from the Supreme Court. Who? What does it mean?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:24]

SCIUTTO: President Biden says there are still more Americans in Afghanistan trying to get out before Tuesday's withdrawal deadline.

CNN's Kylie Atwood is at the State Department with more.

Kylie, following the numbers here has been difficult from the beginning, exactly how many Americans in country and also exactly how many want to leave versus the small number who seem to be choosing to stay.

What is the latest math here?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: OK, so we don't have a precise figure, but it looks like the number is under 1,000, and probably somewhere in the hundreds. And let me just explain how we get to that number.

Yesterday, the State Department said that they have been in touch with about a thousand Americans that they believe are still in Afghanistan. They said about two-thirds of those, so more than 600 of those, are making -- are taking steps to get out of the country. Some of them were already out of the country or nearly out of the country.

So basically the situation is fluid, but they are tracking less than a thousand Americans who are still trying to get out of the country. And, presumably, there were some Americans who got out in the last 24- hour period. We heard from the White House earlier this morning that were -- there were about 12,000 people that got out of the country in the last 24 hours. So we would assume that there are some Americans in that group. So that number, a few hundred, is probably going to go down and we'll bring more details when we hear more from the State Department.

But, importantly, there's also thousands of Afghans, as you know, Jim, who have been trying to get out of the country, haven't been able to get out. They worked alongside U.S. troops, U.S. diplomats, some of them even have green cards to the United States. And President Biden said yesterday that his message to those Afghans, if they don't get out before August 31st, is that the Biden administration will continue to try to get them out of the country.

[09:20:07] But, of course, that's hinged on two things, specifically the Taliban, if they're going to allow those Afghans to get to the airport to go out of the country. They've said they're not going to, so we'll have to see if there's any way that that changes. And then, of course, the airport itself. There is no agreement to keep that airport open. The Taliban doesn't have the capability, the capacity to operate it on its own once the U.S. leaves on August 31st. So there's a number of conversations going on right now behind the scenes to try and keep that airport open. But that is a critical question here.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Wow. And it's a remarkable reality, right, leaving an airport to a terrorist organization. A remarkable future for Kabul and the country.

Kylie Atwood, thanks very much.

In the coming hours, a huge influx of more than 10,000 Afghan evacuees are expected to arrive, arrive at the American airbase in Ramstein, Germany. According to officials, that's on top of nearly 19,000 evacuees who have come through that base so far.

Atika Shubert is in Ramstein.

Atika, you're there. This is an enormous influx. We've heard stories of difficulty meeting the needs of all those people. What's happening, how quickly are folks getting through?

ATIKA SHUBERT, JOURNALIST: Yes, I mean, it's incredible to see the transformation inside the base. What started as maybe less than 20 tents in one corner of the tarmac here on the airbase has now mushroomed into hundreds of tents, housing thousands of people. It's very basic accommodation.

But, you know, what really, I think, for a lot of evacuees I've spoken to, what they really want to do is get to the United States and be reunited with their families, or at least be able to communicate with them. So when they do get on that plane to the U.S., it's a lot of mixed emotions.

We were able to go to the departure hangar where they board their commercial flights back home. And listen to what one evacuee told me about his excitement of going to the U.S., but also sadness at leaving family behind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD SHAH SHIRZAD, EVACUEE: There are women in there. My -- I have four sister and two brother. I come here with my one sister.

Yes. It's very hard to feel this, honestly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHUBERT: And more than 4,000 have left the base and headed towards the United States, but that is just a small portion of the amount that has come here. So the goal is to speed up those commercial flights. Delta, United, charter flights are bringing these evacuees to the U.S. and get them settled back there as soon as possible.

SCIUTTO: It's going to be an enormous change for those families, for the communities. So many stories, thousands of them, in fact.

Atika Shubert, good to have you there.

President Biden has vowed to hunt down the Kabul attacks, make them pay. How does the U.S. do that after withdrawing by Tuesday's deadline? Is it possible? Is it workable? We'll have more, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:41]

SCIUTTO: This just in to NEWSROOM.

Former President Barack Obama just released a statement on the terrorist attacks that killed more than 100 people yesterday, including 13 U.S. service members in Kabul. Quoting now, Michelle and I were heartbroken to hear about the terrorist attack outside the Kabul airport that killed and wounded so many U.S. service members, as well as Afghan men, women and children. As president, nothing was more painful than grieving with the loved ones of Americans who gave their lives serving our country. As President Biden said, these service members are heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.

Well, this morning, with just four days left until the August 31st deadline set by President Biden for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the window is quickly closing to airlift remaining Americans, as well as the many Afghans who worked with the U.S. in the last two decades and now face grave danger from the Taliban. President Biden is vowing to keep evacuation efforts going. We have seen planes continue to take off.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here's what you need to know. These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans who are there. We will get our Afghan allies out. And our mission will go on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now to discuss is Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. We should note, he's an Air Force veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): You bet, Jim. SCIUTTO: Listen, it's a difficult 24 hours for all involved. Thirteen

U.S. service members are dead, many more wounded.

Who, among U.S. leaders and officials, do you hold responsible?

KINZINGER: You know, look, I don't hold leaders and officials responsible for these Marines' deaths. I hold the Taliban responsible and I hold ISIS. But I do think there were some really bad decisions that put us in this moment.

You could go back, you know, two years and look at the really awful deal negotiated by Donald Trump, and then you can just go to a month ago and look at this insistence of an August 31st deadline, the leaving Bagram, the failure to defend Kabul when they were surrounded by the Taliban.

[09:30:02]

So everybody bears some responsibility for sure.

But I -- they're the only people I hold responsible for the deaths are these evil terrorists, and there has to be vengeance on them.