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Dangerous Hurricane Ida Barreling toward U.S. Gulf Coast; U.S. Says Strike Killed Two "High-Profile" ISIS Targets; Female Activists Stay in Afghanistan to Fight for Rights; New Economic Crisis Looms after Taliban Takeover; U.N.: More than 500,000 Afghan Refugees May Flee by End of 2021; Communities Come to Grips with U.S. Service Members' Deaths in Kabul Airport Attack. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired August 29, 2021 - 00:00   ET

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

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes. This is CNN NEWSROOM. Appreciate your company.

And we do begin with the breaking news. Right now, Hurricane Ida is making its dangerous trek towards the U.S. Gulf Coast as a category 2 storm but expected to rapidly gain strength in the hours ahead.

The potentially catastrophic hurricane forecast to slam into the Louisiana coast on Sunday possibly as a category 4 storm, hitting the state on exactly the same date as Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago.

Now the National Weather Service in New Orleans says storm surge and high winds could leave some locations uninhabitable for weeks or even months. Now both mandatory and voluntary evacuations have been ordered for several Louisiana parishes as the National Hurricane Center warns of life-threatening situations.

Officials say, if residents are to leave, do it now. Now nearly all of the floodgates in Louisiana's hurricane and storm damage risk reduction system have been closed down ahead of the storm.

Those still open will be closed within the next few hours. Prolonged power outages are also a major concern. FEMA says it is moving supply trucks and generators into Louisiana ahead of Ida's landfall. There are 10,000 linemen in the state, already; another 20,000, on standby.

And making matters worse, many hospitals in the area are already maxed out due to COVID-19 cases. Health officials are asking residents not to go to the hospital unless it is truly a dire emergency. Now on Saturday, Louisiana's governor stressed the dangerous and historic nature of Ida's threat.

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GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (R-LA): When you talk about rain totals that could be up to 15, 16 inches and -- and in isolated areas, above 20 inches, with that kind of rain, that kind of storm surge, that kind of wind, this is just a very serious storm.

It'll be one of the very strongest storms to hit Louisiana since the 1850s. And, ironically, it's scheduled to make landfall on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

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HOLMES: I am joined now by CNN national correspondent, Jason Carroll. He is in Houma, Louisiana.

Let's start with this. What -- what are you seeing now?

I expect it's quiet but what are you expecting to see in the hours ahead where you are?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first things first. You are absolutely right, Michael. It is pin-drop quiet, like a ghost town here in Houma. And that's exactly how emergency officials want it to be.

Houma is under a mandatory evacuation. But in terms of what we're expecting, very good question. Emergency officials are expecting this could be ground zero for Hurricane Ida, which is why you see a number of boarded-up buildings in and around town, some sandbags in front of the buildings.

But certainly not all around town, Michael. We have seen a number of buildings that are not boarded up as well. I was -- spoke to the local sheriff here, who told me that, while Houma is under a mandatory evacuation, he estimates anywhere between 60 percent to 80 percent of the residents have, in fact, decided to heed that warning, that severe warning and have evacuated.

But certainly, we have spoken to some folks, who say they are going to stay put.

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CARROLL: So you are not going -- you are not going to evacuate.

Do you have any concerns about staying?

JESSICA DUPRE, HOUMA RESIDENT: Tornadoes and wind damage. I'm more worried about what we could come home to, wanting to go down that way because probably -- if they have any bad damage here, we have nothing.

CARROLL: Is there anything that anyone can say to convince you to -- to evacuate?

DUPRE: You drive me now? Because I ain't getting on no interstate. I'm scared.

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DUPRE: I'm more scared of the interstate than staying in the house right here.

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CARROLL: You know, Michael, any time you are covering one of these hurricanes, you always find that person who says they are going to stay put for whatever reason, whether it be not wanting to get out on the roads, whether it be wanting to stay behind and protect their house.

But the governor has made it very clear. The sheriff has made it very clear that this is going to be a severe event and time is running out in order to get out -- Michael.

HOLMES: Yes. Pretty hard to fight off a hurricane.

What -- what -- when you look at the level of preparation and we have been watching some sandbagging and things like that on video.

CARROLL: Yes.

HOLMES: Thing -- things are different in -- in Louisiana, particularly since Katrina, right?

Improvements have been made.

CARROLL: A lot of improvements and, in fact, we have seen them. I was actually in Louisiana, post-Katrina, saw, as many people did, Michael, those levees that failed.

And in the years since then, there have been a lot of improvements throughout the state of -- of Louisiana. Right here in Houma and throughout this parish, we have seen improvements on levees. Back in New Orleans, we saw improvements on levees in the Ninth Ward.

For example, though, getting back to where we are, Chauvin, not far from where we are right now, there is a much-improved floodgate that's there. It's about 15 feet.

But most of the levees in and around this parish stand at about 12 feet. And when you look at some of the dire predictions of Hurricane Ida, where you are looking at storm surge that could be anywhere from, what, 10 to 15 feet, you just do the math there and you could see that there could be, you know, some severe flooding that could take place, even with the levees in place.

But having said that, I have spoken to these emergency officials that say, even if one levee fails, there are back-up levees in place as well. But again, even having said that, this is what could be a category 4 hurricane. Again, they are talking about severe flooding, severe wind, severe

rain and again, something that they're urging people to evacuate if they are in low-lying areas.

HOLMES: All right. Appreciate the update. Thank you, Jason Carroll there in Houma, Louisiana. Thank you.

CARROLL: You bet.

HOLMES: All right. I want to bring in Aaron Jayjack. He is an extreme storm chaser. He is joining me now live from Morgan City.

And, Aaron, great to have you. You have chased a lot of storms.

What -- what is your read on this one in potential strength and -- and impact, as well?

AARON JAYJACK, EXTREME STORM CHASER: Well, so I have been -- I've been in a lot of hurricanes over the years. And this one is unique in that, very early on, before it was even a storm or even a hurricane, you could tell that the models were very consistent in showing that it would be a powerful hurricane, likely coming to shore in Louisiana.

And -- and it's quick. There is only a few days here.

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JAYJACK: I know a lot of people -- I was at the New Orleans airport earlier tonight -- and I heard a lot of people talking when they were waiting in line to get a rental car, that this is kind of -- came up fast. They weren't ready for it just a couple days ago. They were looking at forecasts and they didn't really think they were going to get any kind of bad weather.

And now, we have this potentially major hurricane approaching the Louisiana coast right now.

HOLMES: And of course, we know there is a lot of low-lying areas there.

What do you see as the bigger threats?

We know hurricanes' water kills more people than wind. And -- and then there is the substantial surge as well, right?

JAYJACK: Well, that's right. Flooding -- surging is generally the big killer, the most dangerous part of these storms. You know, wind is dangerous but wind, in itself, is not that dangerous. It's when it picks up debris and it throws that debris that the wind becomes dangerous.

But you do see more of those deaths and injuries coming from the surge and the flooding. And one of the concerns that we are going to have here with this hurricane is torrential downpours. You know, lots of rain. You know, once it comes ashore and then, that wind and that surge

threat starts to subside a little bit, there is still the threat of just, you know, of flooding over the land from how much rain that this tropical system is just going to dump on the southern Louisiana coast and all the way up into Tennessee are or mid -- mid parts of the United States.

HOLMES: So what -- what are you going to be looking for?

Obviously, it's calm where you are right now.

What are you going to be looking for as signs that things are picking up?

What -- what are going to be the indicators to you over the next, I don't know, 18 hours?

JAYJACK: So I am watching the radar, the -- the infrared radar imagery. Looking at -- you can see now at this -- this storm is starting to form that very defined eye. You can see big supercells, basically, wrapping around the eye.

And you can see the intensity is starting to grow. And as a storm chaser, my whole goal is to get into that eye of the storm, to get into the worst parts of that storm. So I'm, you know, monitoring hour -- minute by minute even, watching the models, watching the NHC, the National Hurricane Center's forecast.

I work for a company called My Radar. We have a hurricane tracker in there and I am watching that hurricane tracker to see where that eye of that -- that hurricane is going to come across.

And that's my goal is to just maneuver myself. I am here in Morgan City right now. But it looks like, you know, as this thing comes ashore, it will wobble to the east, wobble to the west. And lately, the trend has been to wobble a little bit more to the west and looks like maybe, Houma, Louisiana, might be the dead center of where that eye hits.

But that can change. There is still probably, you know, at least 12 hours, maybe a little more until this storm makes landfall and a lot can change between now and then.

HOLMES: Absolutely. Aaron Jayjack, really appreciate your time and your experience on this. I'm -- I'm sure we'll talk some more. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

JAYJACK: Yes, you're welcome. Thank you.

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HOLMES: All right. The U.S. has hit back after Thursday's deadly bombing outside Kabul airport. Coming up, exclusive footage showing the site of an airstrike against ISIS-K.

Also, the final days of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. The latest on the race to evacuate Americans and their allies. That's coming up.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

The U.S. embassy in Afghanistan is urging Americans, once again, to leave the area around the Kabul airport, citing a specific and credible threat. Now that alert comes after Thursday's deadly bombing, of course, and two days before all U.S. troops are supposed to be out of Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden has already warned another attack is highly likely. And all of this as the U.S. hits back against the ISIS-linked militants it says are responsible for the blast. The Pentagon reporting two high-profile, as they put it, ISIS-K militants were killed, one wounded, in a U.S. airstrike near Jalalabad.

Now the aftermath seen in this exclusive video showing the damage around a building as well as inside it. The president, Joe Biden, vowing the strike against ISIS-K will not be the last.

Meanwhile, time running out in the race to get Americans and their allies out of Afghanistan. A U.S. official says around 2,000 people were evacuated over 12 hours on Saturday. The U.S. and allied countries have evacuated more than 113,000 people since August 14. But there are fears thousands could still be left behind.

CNN senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, joins me now from Hong Kong. Also, White House reporter, Jasmine Wright, is in Washington.

Ivan, let's begin with you. Now the U.S. President said another attack is likely in the next 24 hours.

What are you hearing about the situation on the ground?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the -- the warnings are pretty ominous, especially considering the just sheer carnage and loss of life after Thursday's suicide attack -- bomb attack at the gates of Kabul airport that claimed the lives of more than 160 Afghans, as well as 13 U.S. service personnel.

You've heard President Biden, himself, say that he's been told that there's a -- a threat likely within the next 24 to 36 hours. The U.S. embassy has put out a statement about a specific, credible threat.

And the Australian department of foreign affairs has echoed that, saying there is, quote, "an ongoing and very high threat of a terrorist attack."

And the fact is that as long as there are Western troops in that airport, as long as there are Western planes flying in and out, then groups like ISIS, its branch in Afghanistan, sees these as legitimate targets, not to mention, the tremendous number of Afghan civilians that it's killed in the past.

Now as you mention, the -- the Pentagon has said that at least two planners of ISIS attacks were killed in this drone strike on Saturday. We've since seen some footage from the location of the drone strike in Nangarhar province outside the city of Jalalabad and have been able to talk to some eyewitnesses on the ground there.

The Pentagon insists that no civilians were hurt; eyewitnesses seem to claim otherwise. Take a listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When we arrived, there were wounded people. And the dead were also lying there.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Approximately three people have been killed and a number were injured. Among them, women and children. Among the dead were one woman, one man and one child. After that, we took the wounded out and transported them to the hospital.

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WATSON: Now President Biden has said that there can be further attacks in the future, in response to the ISIS suicide bombing. A Taliban spokesman has condemned the U.S. drone strike, saying that the U.S. should have let the Taliban know ahead of time.

Also, another Taliban spokesman has said that once Western troops are out of the country, that it will re-open its borders and resume international travel as long as -- and there's a caveat -- the Afghans travel in a dignified manner that reflects their religion and their country.

Meanwhile, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, well, he has indicated that there are preliminary discussions with the Taliban about continuing repatriation, continuing allowing humanitarian flights out and that this could be, theoretically, coordinated with Qatar, that has close links with the Taliban -- Michael.

HOLMES: Yes. Thank you, Ivan. Ivan Watson there in Hong Kong.

Jasmine Wright in D.C., Joe Biden making it clear that strike on ISIS- K would not be the last.

What's the White House saying about where things stand?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, they stand in a potentially grave situation when President Biden updated that threat level, saying that things -- that another attack at the airport was highly likely in the next 24 to 36 hours.

That is a step further than what we've heard from him and the White House in the last few days; not probable but highly likely.

But Michael, this message fits in line with what we have heard from officials -- just as -- over the last few days as they have really told reporters that they are entering the most dangerous period of the mission so far. And this is a mission to evacuate Americans that has not been exactly safe.

We know that the attack Thursday left 13 U.S. service members dead. But still, they are saying that they are entering this period where not only are they focusing on evacuating Americans, the Pentagon said today they have -- they have about 350 left that they are still talking with.

But they are, also, focusing on the drawdown of forces before that August 31st deadline. And so that means that on the ground, they are dealing with less troops as official -- as troops have started to leave the airport today.

They are dealing with less weaponry, less machinery and potentially less visibility. So the White House really wants folks to know that President Biden is focused really on this issue.

Not only did he have a national security briefing today, where he heard that message of highly likely Kabul attack but he's had one every day this week. And he is going to have one, officials say, every day next week, as they really try to monitor that -- you know, the situation on the ground before the August 31st deadline.

But one thing I want to note for you, Michael, is that the Pentagon said today, as Ivan pointed out, said they killed two ISIS-K planners and President Biden said that more strikes could come because it's not only that retaliation aspect, Michael.

It's also about trying to disrupt the organization and thwart any potential attacks that are included in that highly likely message from ISIS-K on the ground. So they are watching these things very, very closely before and until it gets to that August 31st deadline -- Michael.

HOLMES: The clock is ticking. Ivan Watson in Hong Kong. Jasmine Wright in Washington. Appreciate it. Thanks for being with us.

But as many Afghans hope to catch a flight out while they still can, fear is growing among some of those who will stay, including many women, terrified of the Taliban's return to power. But as Anna Coren reports for us, some female activists are choosing to stay, to keep fighting for women's rights.

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ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "I'm in my house, waiting for any help and support for protection."

"Due to the dangerous situation, my family has stopped me coming on the media."

"I think we will be left here in this hell under the dark shadow of this tyranny."

Testimonies from women inside Afghanistan. All across the country, they are dreading the Taliban's return to power, wondering what it will mean for them.

Many are desperately trying to escape; entire lives, dreams shattered. Their fears are not unfounded. Under Taliban rule, in the '90s and early 2000s, the group denied women basic rights.

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COREN (voice-over): Forcing them to cover their entire bodies, banning them from the workplace and prohibiting most education for girls, driving many schools, like this one, underground. The Taliban's longtime spokesman says women's rights will be protected within Islamic sharia law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There will be no violence against women, no discrimination against womens. Of course, based within the framework of the Islamic law.

COREN (voice-over): But already, signs that things have not changed that much. Just days ago, field commanders told women they had to be covered up. And their spokesman instructed women to stay home, temporarily, because their soldiers are, quote, "not trained to respect them."

And yet, despite the impending nightmare scenario, some women activists are choosing to risk it all and stay in Afghanistan for now to continue their work.

Mahbouba Seraj is one of them. She's a prominent activist and head of the Afghan Women's Network.

MAHBOUBA SERAJ, AFGHAN WOMEN'S NETWORK: I am planning to stay here. And I am going to for as long as I am needed in Afghanistan, for as long as there is something I can do which is useful. And I will be hopefully capable of going outside. I am not worried or afraid about that.

COREN (voice-over): This courageous woman in her 70s is waiting to find out what life will be like after the August 31st deadline but says the Taliban cannot afford to count women out this time.

SERAJ: Afghanistan has 35 million people and there are 18 million women. And there is a lot of people that they are educated here. We all need to work together. And -- and that's what I am hoping that is that -- it happens.

And it better happen sooner because the more time we spent in this -- in this kind of a quagmire of not knowing what is going to be happening, Afghanistan will be in deep danger.

COREN (voice-over): And then, there's the generation of Afghan women who can't even remember living under the Taliban, like 23-year-old Pashtana Durrani. She is the executive director of LEARN, a nonprofit working to expand access to girls' education in the country. She is now in hiding.

PASHTANA DURRANI, LEARN: Because we need (INAUDIBLE) to live, to fight for their rights, to fight for their rights to us for their rights, because it's time that people fight back. Not every person can leave. Not every person has the privilege to leave, right?

COREN (voice-over): Pashtana says she is trying to enroll as many girls as possible on digital learning programs before things get worse. But she is not giving up.

DURRANI: It's (INAUDIBLE) of my country as much as theirs and, right now, we fight back. We ask for our rights.

COREN (voice-over): Only time will tell what the future looks like. But the wellbeing of Afghan women will be the surest sign of whether the Taliban has changed its ways. So the stakes could not be higher -- Anna Coren, CNN.

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HOLMES: Now we are, of course, tracking powerful Hurricane Ida as it gets closer to the U.S. We will have the latest update on what coastal states can expect in the hours ahead. We'll be right back.

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HOLMES: You're looking at Hurricane Hunter team as it flew directly into the eyewall of the Hurricane Ida. This is on Saturday. Now they are part of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration or NOAA and are gathering data that helps forecasters know what's going on inside the storm, in real time so meteorologists can make predictions.

The plane, by the way, is a WP-3D Orion named Ms. Piggy.

Now right now, Hurricane Ida is barreling toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, expected to rapidly gain strength. Louisiana's governor says Ida will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana in nearly 170 years.

Now it could make landfall as a category 4 along the Louisiana coast in the coming hours and on the exact same date as Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago.

Now Ida's already forced some evacuations. And the governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have each declared a state of emergency. Forecasters say a storm surge of up to 15 feet is expected in some areas; winds, perhaps, as high as 150 miles an hour. Now the storm could leave some locations uninhabitable for weeks or even months.

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HOLMES: Meanwhile, people in the U.S. coastal states have been busy, of course, preparing for the storm for the last couple of days. From Florida to Louisiana, they are no strangers to hurricanes. And residents are making sure they're going to be ready for Ida when it slams ashore.

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HOLMES (voice-over): Filling up and getting out, many people in New Orleans are leaving town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Katrina was here, hey, I had -- I had to stand in the water and I slept on the bridge for two days, I am not about to do that again.

HOLMES (voice-over): The lines of heavy traffic leading out of the city show just how many people aren't taking their chances with the storm named Ida. Many residents have been through major hurricanes before.

But officials say this one could be a monster. There are warnings in New Orleans and the surrounding coastal regions to evacuate, if at all possible, by morning. One man says his neighborhood on a barrier island is emptying out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody packing up, getting out. I hear it's only going to be about a dozen people probably going to try to ride it out. But you know, it's going to flood.

HOLMES (voice-over): Louisiana has taken the punches of many of these walloping storms before. It's still recovering from Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Zeta, which made landfall in the state last year, causing nearly $20 billion in damage.

And 16 years ago, on this very day, Hurricane Katrina unleashed its fury on New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities. More than 1,800 people were killed in the storm and its harrowing aftermath.

The city taking early action, based on mistakes made during that disaster. It spent billions of dollars reconstructing its levee system. U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration to free up federal assistance.

FEMA is moving trucks and generators to the area. And more than 200 National Guard members are already on the ground in New Orleans. Rescue teams from across the Southeast, also, gearing up to help. Some getting coronavirus tests before they deploy.

Officials and experts say the pandemic will make emergency responses more difficult. And with low vaccination rates in places in the storm's path, Ida could bring a surge not only of floodwaters but of more COVID-19 cases.

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HOLMES: Well, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has led to a cash squeeze and long lines at ATMs. Now the central bank stepping in to free up currency. But that might not fix the problem. We'll explain, when we come back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has set up a looming economic crisis. There have been warnings the country is seeing a new brain drain. Women could be excluded from the economy and a country hugely dependent on foreign aid stands to lose even more financially.

There is also the problem getting cash for everyday Afghans to buy food. Banks have been shut for nearly two weeks. Long lines have formed out of -- outside of ATMs. Many of them don't have any cash.

Now Afghanistan's central bank is telling commercial banks to re-open and let people withdraw up to $200. But a source telling CNN the banks, themselves, have virtually run out of cash.

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HOLMES: Christine Fair is a professor of security studies at Georgetown University. She joins me now from Alexandria in Virginia.

Professor, thanks so much. I mean, we -- we've discussed a lot lately, the military and the militant situation on the ground in Afghanistan. But a fundamental reality is that Taliban are going to have to govern.

What are your thoughts?

Do they have the capability to run the bureaucracies, the nuts and bolts needed to keep the lights on?

CHRISTINE FAIR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Well, so, they did do this, right?

Taliban 1.0. So the difference is, right, is that the kinds of records that they've come into possession of are things like biometrics. So the first thing that they're going to be doing, they're not going to be governing, they're going to be murdering.

They have got the biometrics of just about every single person that worked for the government. They are going to be going after the NDS, which is Afghanistan's intelligence service. So they're not thinking about governing right now. HOLMES: More than 100,000 people have left the country in this

evacuation period. And that's not counting those who fled as refugees across the land borders for years now.

Do you see a brain drain unfolding?

And how will that impact not just the Taliban ability to govern but indeed the future of the country?

FAIR: So I have been thinking a lot about the fall of Saigon. There have been a lot of parallels made to that. But those parallels are really inappropriate for a number of reasons.

You know, Vietnam, for better or for worse, the perils as well as promises of Communism, is there were some fairly basic human capital that was left in place. And Vietnam today is a functioning country that's considerably evolved from where it was.

It's really difficult to see Afghanistan evolving in this way. You know, I think one of the major challenges that the United States and our NATO partners had, in terms of building Afghan capacity, were these really fundamental human capital challenges.

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FAIR: And so, I mean, as you know, you have spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, there was always this heavy reliance upon contractors. And instead of training Afghans to do their job and, thus, working them out of a job, they were actually doing that job. So there will be, I expect, a really considerable brain drain problem.

HOLMES: Going back to the sort of -- the -- the economic and -- and the -- the running of the country, keeping the lights on, Afghanistan is, of course, incredibly reliant on foreign aid, as we know.

How likely would the West be to provide money and support to Afghanistan when that money, obviously, goes through Taliban hands?

And what -- what would be the impact of it not flowing?

FAIR: So I think there's a major country that's being left out of this discussion and that's China. China had very robust ties with the Taliban prior to 9/11. China actually, along with their Pakistani partners, did a lot of the infrastructure that was built during the Taliban 1.0 government.

And there is no indication that this is going to be less the case now. The Chinese need stability in Afghanistan. And I want to be really clear. What the Chinese mean by stability is different from what we mean.

So the Chinese are very vested in this. So this is an important opportunity for the Chinese to link up their projects in Pakistan with Afghanistan. And the Chinese don't care about human rights. They don't care about what sort of dictatorship the -- the Taliban are going to establish. This is what they care about. And so, I don't think all of this handwringing about, well, the

Taliban need recognition, they need international aid, all of that is misplaced. They don't need it. They have China.

And given the competition between Doha and Saudi Arabia, right, I wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, the Saudis also hop on board because they don't want to be outmaneuvered by the Qataris.

And the Qataris have been, so far, outmaneuvering the Saudis.

So the question is going to arise for Western countries, is do they sanction the Afghans, the Afghan government, which will only further immiserate the Afghans who are already immiserated under the Taliban?

Or do they find some way of aiding the Taliban government, knowing full well that the Taliban are going to reap those benefits?

But irrespective of what these Western governments do, China is already in the picture.

HOLMES: Professor Christine Fair, thank you so much for your insights. Really appreciate it.

FAIR: All right. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Communities across the U.S. come to grips with the deaths of service members in Kabul. Next, family members share their memories and their pain after their loved ones died in the line of duty.

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HOLMES: The U.S. has released the names of its 13 military members killed in Thursday's attack at the Kabul airport. For their nation, they were men and women in uniform, serving in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

But for the people would knew them, they were sons, daughters, brothers, husbands and friends. Five of them were only 20 years old, meaning they were born around the time the war in Afghanistan began. As Natasha Chen reports, they were a cross-section of the country they died fighting for.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were young, they were passionate, they believed in their mission.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, the freedom we enjoy as Americans isn't free.

CHEN: Across the U.S., the families and hometown communities of these 13 U.S. service members are grappling with loss after a suicide bomb attack killed them and more than 170 others outside Kabul's international airport on Thursday.

A moment of silence was held for 20-year-old Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz of St. Charles, Missouri.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are incredibly grateful for Jared's service to our nation.

CHEN: And a gathering of friends remembered 23-year-old Marine Corporal Daegan Page from near Omaha, Nebraska. His family says he was a longtime Boy Scout, played hockey and loved hunting in the outdoors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was gone. He was one of the nicest persons I've ever met. I mean -- he was there for you when you needed it and he was there for you when you didn't want it. But he was the definition of best friend I've ever had.

CHEN: The father of 31-year-old Marine Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover of Salt Lake City said his son was called to action by a defining moment of his generation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was 11 years old, at 9/11. At that time, he decided that, hey, that's what I want to do. Best kid in the world and couldn't ask for any better. Loved his family. His sisters absolutely adore him.

CHEN: The sister of 20-year-old Marine Corporal Rylee McCollum, said he was on his first deployment and was expecting a baby due in three weeks.

Another Marine, 23-year-old Sergeant Nicole Gee of Sacramento, California, had posted a week ago on Instagram, a photo of her holding an Afghan infant.

She wrote, "I love my job."

Her friend, who served with her, posted a tribute on social media, saying, "Gee cared about people. She loved fiercely. She was a light in this dark world."

Gee was one of two female U.S. service members among those killed.

The other was 25-year-old Marine Sergeant Johanny Rosario Pichardo from Lawrence, Massachusetts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a conversation with her mother yesterday, she spoke of her daughter as a vibrant young person who wanted to give back to the community. And as a result of that, it is her mother's desire that Johanny will be brought back to the city of Lawrence as the hero she is.

CHEN: In addition to the 11 Marines killed, one Army Staff Sergeant 23-year-old Ryan Knauss and one Navy Hospitalman 22-year-old Maxton Soviak were also killed.

[00:55:00]

CHEN (voice-over): The last time Soviak spoke to his mother, she told him to be safe. The family said Soviak's last words to her over FaceTime were, "Don't worry, mom, my guys got me. They won't let anything happen to me."

His mother said she realized they all just went together.

CHEN: The tribute written about Sergeant Nicole Gee by her friend who served with her in the Marines also talked about the fact that some of the younger generation may have only served on peaceful missions. They heard war stories from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans but may have felt removed from the combat experience.

That is until Thursday. That post talked about how the explosion made the realities of America's longest war extremely personal for them -- back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Our thanks to Natasha Chen.

And thank you for spending part of your day with me. I'm Michael Holmes. Do stick around. I'll be back with another hour of NEWSROOM in a moment.