see the level of resistance by the afghans to hold some territory, some bases. and unfortunately those were the basis that the afghans didn't whole. but all of those responsibilities were turned over in accordance with the retrograde plan. back from april interest for the general, i guess a journal, mackenzie talked about wanting to talk to the taliban about pushing the perimeter back as one of the 3 ways to avoid another incident has that happened? i mean, you can see by how much, but it's significantly been pushed back. and what are you seeing in terms of flow to get it less people being allowed in a rush of people which could lead to similar to what you've seen today. so what i can report as my discussion with the commanders they are on the ground is that multiple activities have taken place to increase the force protection specifically in communication with the taliban,

of how they are executing their checkpoint operations and communication when they're so i, i would say there's been multiple, i don't want to go into the details of the exact, of what the communication, but i know that has happened. and what we have seen today is, is a little lessing of what we would say total capacity of people in and around gates . yes, thank you just because the 10 says, i says sincere. so the people who are worried about the thing about the about they were like a larger, cleared up situation from my family get color porch. i'd like to talk about that sincere stuff because i says good people are more, more wooded. do you think that it's another was what is enough? getting more people,

fletcher and everybody now want to leave the country because i always before it was only talking about now i saw a full show up one more time. get activity. do you think that's another one? before i try to answer that question, i do want to take the opportunity on behalf of the department offense to also make sure that we express our condolences for the afghan people who suffered in yesterday's attack. we know that there were a number of killed and wounded afghan civilians at the airport and that there are families that are dealing with the same devastating, terrible news that now gold star families pay here in the department are dealing with. so again, on behalf of the secretary, we offer our condolences and thoughts and prayers. i wish i had a crystal ball. i wish we could know for sure what's gonna happen. and again, it's no, we don't, we obviously,

but don't want to see the country torn asunder through civil war. but, but that's why whatever the future of afghanistan is from a governance perspective, we're going to stay engaged with the international community. to make sure that afghans afghanistan's leaders are held to, for account for the way they are governing. and that afghan afghanistan's neighbors also try to play a constructive productive role and whatever the future of afghanistan is going to be. though we will not have a military presence there, the united states government will still want to see what, what we can do in the interaction with the international community to make sure that that, that afghans can, can have the best of all possible outcomes for the future. but i, i just,

i think it would be foolish for us to try to be to predictive about what's gonna happen right now. you know, change the policy again to be involved again. and i've got the stuff commander in chief as made a very clear decision. it is time to end america's involvement on the ground and in the war and afghan is an and and we're going to execute that decision as we should david for the record. would you clear up the confusion over the server sicily ation of the the dead been sounds like we haven't total number of 13, but within the 13 is a little unclear of the marine statement said at this time 10. so can you tell us

what it is and then they have a question for the jan. i say i'm, i'm, i'm not able to break it down specifically right now, david and i want to defer to the services to speak to their specific number of casualties. as you can imagine, they are having to make they are having to have difficult conversations with a number of families and we here at the department don't want to get ahead of that process. so i just, i, i think on that when i would just refer to the services, you didn't answer the question about whether the taliban have met general mackenzie's request to push the perimeter further away from the airport . and he also said that he was going to ask them to close some specific room. so i'm sorry i didn't at that level of specificity, but i know those just exactly with general mackenzie had said had been passed to his commanders to have those discussions with the taliban to take not only those

specific measures as he mentioned there and you mentioned, but other activities that will increase the security and the facilitation of those getting through so that the discussions? no, i cannot report at this point what actions the taliban have taken in the last but i know that those discussions are happening in that have happened. okay, i gotta get to the phone a little bit here. laura seldman political you there? laura? ok, we'll come back deal or if you're not able to pipe in there, tony?

hi, john, can you hear me, sir? ok, yesterday the president said, we're going to be in a circumstance we're, i believe numerous opportunities will continue to provide access for additional persons to get out of afghanistan. this is after the 31st you said either through mean, so we provide or provide through and cooperation with the taliban. can you give me a sense of the planning you're doing to take a direction to heart and what are the impact military implications of the presence desire for still removing people after the 31st. will there be continued talks with the taliban? i staging a force in the region to get more people out, et cetera. tony, i think my colleague at the white house and at the state department of address this question before mean we the inner agency, the u. s. government will pursue a variety of, of ways to help any americans who want to get out after our military presence at the airport has ended to be able to help them get out. and it's,

while afghans stand in any case, it's not completely separated from the larger effort that the united states government pursues all over the world. when, when we, when we know that americans are special risk we, we do what we can to get them out and that doesn't necessarily involve the united states military. so i'm not going to i certainly wouldn't speculate one way or another about what's going to happen after this particular mission ends. but i would not envision a significant military role in that effort. going forward to what david was asking if the us military knew that there were improvements to be made, such as closing road and pushing the perimeter back further. why was this discussion engaged in before in before the attack?

why wasn't the point press? why were these improvements asked for by the telephone? because you're saying, general kennedy is very clear, he's asking for this now. part, i'll tell you from the very get go. even before we had a specific threat assessment for protection was of paramount importance to general mckenzie to certainly to the secretary. and i don't want to speak for the chairman, but i think i can for general milly as well. in this regard, i can tell you that from the very beginning, force protection was always at the front of everybody's mind and forced protection, as you well know, particularly in a dynamic environment is something that changes all the time. and so as we got more information, we made adjustments to force protection measures to try to do the, the, the best we could at what we thought were the specific threats we were facing. and you heard the general talk yesterday about even over watch in the air. and then

there was a lot of effort being done, which included as the journals that included daily communication with taliban, about the nature of the threat and, and sharing with them the appropriate, relevant information about what we, what we knew now clearly all of that effort and there was a lot of effort clearly fell short in some way because this attack was able to be perpetrated and we did suffer as, as well as our afghan friends suffered casualties. we're going to do the forensics on this bar. clearly try to figure out what went wrong, because clearly something went wrong. but it would be responsible if we didn't act immediately to just to, to double down and make sure that we were that, that we, that we were being as anticipatory as possible because we still believe there are credible threats. in fact, i'd say specific, credible threats,

and we want to make sure we're prepared for those. and i don't think, and i'm sure you can understand that, that just just by virtue of the fact that that we may be taking other steps doesn't mean that that, that they, that they would have necessarily been the proper steps for what we saw yesterday. we have additional information and so what i would tell you is we're what you're seeing as act on to degree. we can talk about it is based on the information that we have. and i think i, i think that you have additional information. can you tell us, do you mean you have developed the additional information since the attack? do you still believe something is potentially and we want a general kenzie covered it very well yesterday we we certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts. absolutely. but i won't get into the specifics of

what those are and why we're doing what we're doing, additional intelligence since the we, we, again, without talking to intelligence, we're monitoring these threats very, very specifically. virtually in real time. and i think you can understand, i wouldn't get in more detail than that. tara 2 questions for general taylor in the weight of the attacks. have the commander us trainers on the ground had improved communications with taliban commanders. not only in improving security but potentially and getting as id applicants are atkins through the gate. and 2nd. secondly. ready in the wake of the attack since ice, this is also a problem for the taliban. is there a potential there to coordinate to actually target isis? so when we say improve communication, i just want to, i would answer that with we are continuing, you know,

communication. so improve her, i would say every day that is improving because we have more repetitions, we're, we're able to continue have open lines of communication. so the specificity of what is being passed back and forth tactically, to allow for a better security environment. i would say is improving because those repetitions are happening in the understanding of the taliban of what needs to take place is being reinforced. and so i think yes. and then your 2nd question of passing on specifics like, what are we looking for here? what is the threat that we need you to look for? yes, that is absolutely being passed from the commanders on the ground to those taliban commanders. to ensure as mr. kirby said, you know, things like yes, we understand what to look for. we understand what the threat is to try to prevented to target isis any those threats yet,

those isis threats that could come. and then secondly, there was a secondary explosion later yesterday where us forces were doing control detonation equipment. can you talk about the type of equipment that is being destroyed in the retrograde so you don't have to fly it out but it doesn't fall into the wrong hands either. yeah. so the actual specifics of what type of equipment was destroyed. i don't have that, but you will, we have said is that, you know, the commander that has the authority there to destroy the equipment that they feel is responsible. so as we talked about control detonations, i think that was your specific question. that's what we call that a control detonation that could take place if the commander decided to destroy some type of equipment. i only had that, as i mentioned earlier, lives are going to be the priority tara,

so there will be you can expect that there will be other equipment and in material things that will not be brought back with us. we're going to do this in a judicious way. some stuff will obviously come back with us, but for the aircraft that are departing, as we get closer to the month, we want to prioritize the passenger seat's as much as possible. so you're going to continue to see things disposed of in a responsible way as, as we get closer to the end of the mission. and i think that that people would expect us to do that. yeah. john, what's the department of that capability of either skate and they're concerned that they can use too long shut attacks against the united states, both august 31st. well obviously there are serious terrorist threat and

that was brought home to us in pretty stark ways. yesterday we, we take the threat very, very seriously. i don't want to i'm not going to speculate about future threats. what i will tell you the president has made this clear, the secretaries made it clear to the leadership at the pentagon that we're going. we're not going to allow attacks on the homeland to emanate from afghanistan again, like they did 20 years ago. and we do have over the horizon counterterrorism capability available to us to make sure that that doesn't happen. and i think i'd leave it at that. do you believe that bond can stand to i can defeat them. i. i think that the threat by from isis is real and nobody wants to see that threat. grow. i cannot speak would not begin to speak for taliban capabilities or taliban intent. obviously they,

there's significant animosity between these 2 groups and they don't share interests are, but i am not. it will be full for me to try to predict the degree to which the operations tell them may conduct against i c, k. all i can tell you is the direction that this department has is to, to not allow, attacks on the home and to emanate from afghanistan again. and we are committed to that as well as counterterrorism. operations elsewhere around the world. because the threat has metastasize outside ask in a stand to other places where we also have to maintain a focus in a degree of with arise and counterterrorism capability. we go back over here in the back. there are 2 questions. first, can you speak to any rescue apps that have happened since the attack? i don't think there's been any rotary nothing additional. and the 2nd question, which is probably more for the general over the last 5 days, we've seen anywhere from $8994.00 flight leaves cobble. but we've seen somewhere

between 125 and 216. can you explain why the number of evacuations fluctuate so much, but the number of flights has remained relatively betty. so i think what you have seen is just break those into 2 bins. first. as you look at the u. s. flight have stayed pretty steady, right in the, those numbers, you know, as other countries are coming in, they are evacuating certain numbers, you know, of where they are in their capability or requirement. and so i think that is where you've seen some of the differences in the outward flow, and i think, i mean, you really have to go back to my number today, 810000 total. so, you know, as, as we started, you know, just, and are almost, you know, just a few weeks ago had 0 all the way up 211-0000. we would see some of those numbers start to to come down. go back to the phone,

sam legroom. hey, john. as the, as part of the exit. is it the us intention to leave a functioning airport with like radars at work computers that work? i mean, what's, what's the obligation for what you all leave behind? the airport is functioning them and we're going to needed to continue to function right up into the very end. so i think the general assumption is that as we, as we depart and we were going to need to depart from a functional, completely operational airport, that's our assumption going forward that at all, that that will be operational right up until, until, until we're gone. and as you probably heard, secretary blink and say, the other day the we're working with the international community or several nations that want to contribute to the effort to keep it operational and willing to work with taliban to that. and certainly have that them speak to that effort. gordon.

tolerate any obligations again, i just beside any future things, where do you have any assessment of what isis fighters at the prisons that they may have taken actually against or killed other than some of the ones that we know about? i know something that's knowable. i did, you guys have sought to find out and can't find out. that's normal gordon. i mean, i'm happy to take that question, but i don't want to raise expectations here on our level of the granularity of intelligence we may have gotten from these, these prison releases i, i don't want to over promise here. i'm happy to ask that question, but i can promise you a good answer. and i are. thank you, john. the 50000. as i passed through that you referenced earlier, can we expect those folks to be process of the same for in the same for states that previously reported will be a capacity beyond new jersey, virginia, texas,

and wisconsin. now i think i added some extra facilities here to today that i, that i, that i want ones in new mexico home and air force base. and then 2 in virginia quantico and for picket. and the secretary has been clear that the if we need more, because the demands there that will work with the states and will work with the services to identify potential future rios knows military installations, but those are the ones that we are operating from now. quick follow up. currently it's a 14 step process to get an application validated. given the security challenges yesterday is going to be a change in where those are process or those entirely are folks being processed overseas and then brought to us basis for the final relocation. i honestly can't answer that question i or that's really what for the state department, they run the process. it's not a department of defense equity. jenny, thank you. may i ask?

thank you. sorry. next time i printed them by the said bad though. let me, let me take care of the prison biden said, said, well, you've been listening there to a briefing at the pentagon with the latest updates from afghanistan, especially after those attacks me a couple airport yesterday. we've been hearing that from 2 senior officials and hearing previously john kirby. he's the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. now they have clarified that there was only one suicide blast in the vicinity of the couple airport yesterday. although they say they believe that the ongoing specific threat they did also give an update on the air lift, which they say will still end at the end of the month. and they're saying over there will be no us military presence after that enough kind of time. they will

continue trying to hold the government to account through international engagement extremes. well, we have multiple correspondence covering the story forth. robert bride is on the ground there for us in the african capital cobble need bucket. we'll have more from london on the british evacuation. and kimberly how kiss whitehouse correspondent is there for us in washington dc. but 1st let's go to alan fisher. he's also been listening into that pentagon briefing that you've also been listening to alan, a clarification there about just what happened yesterday. and also this acknowledgement that there are still specific threats in that area. well, is certainly something that the americans talked about yesterday. they weren't aware of a threat stream as they call it. they have been waiting for a number of days from ice o k. even though they have moved the perimeter. the gods are running the parameter farther away from the airport. they still see that eyes a threat. what is interesting is that of course, we knew that there were 12 americans that, that numbers know going up to 13 part of the reason for that will be the fact that

they had involved at the moment in retrograde. so what's thought that's taking military equipment and equipment that is used by the americans and i've gotten this done and moving it back to other places around the world. and one of the things that would have been broken down would have been the hospital. and so we've spoken to someone who was involved in security and cabal, and they said look good with the facilities. they've got. busy know they are really pretty basic and suddenly being injured and action can quickly turn in to being k, a killed an action. and that appears to be what happened with the 13th member of the military that died overnight in the us. but obviously during the day in cabal, they also talked about how they were going to continue right until the last moment, flying people out of the country, the number of flight says mean remain pretty constant. the number of people who have got out dipped for a bit, but is it 2500 over 12500 over the last 24 hours and the majority of them

again, will be afghans. it's all about processing. it's about making sure that these people are eligible to board the flight and it's 10 sac he said 14 hours ago. this isn't a free for all. you can just show up at the airport and expect to get on a flight. because you don't want to live under the taliban. the has to be a reason for you getting on the flight, either a vulnerable individual that has been approved by the state department, someone who worked with the americans over the last 20 years. and of course, american citizens themselves, and we believe that there are no somewhere around $300.00 american citizens that are still in afghanistan. and a number of them will want to leave they, me will be in for the long haul here. alan fish there with the laser lions for us from that pentagon briefing. thank you so much, allen. well, from the pentagon, let's go to the white house and speak to our correspondent can be how can, kimberly, president biden clearly have plenty on his plate?

there not to mention dealing with the fall out after those trip deaths and the pentagon there sounded very fun, but the u. s. and president biden is not reconsidering the troopers role. there's no question that they are firm on that given the fact that they believe each day that there is any sort of lingering is increased risk. the risk that we saw play out less than 24 hours ago that resulted in so many americans as well as afghans being killed. and so as a result, the us president is taking a lot of criticism for his decision to stand firm, not only from his republican critics, which would be expected, but also from within his own democratic party, republican calling for his resignation. and also for a return of law makers to capitol hill from their august recess. thing that this is something that needs to be investigated, that the country is in crisis. they argue that in fact, the intelligent signals were ignored. but we heard from the pentagon,

that is not the case, that in fact, they were very prepared for the attack that occurred. but unfortunately, sometimes this still does happen when you're in a conflict though, as well. we are hearing from the democratic critics who are raising questions about why the united states is cooperating with the taliban when it comes to american security. but the us president has years of foreign policy experience under his belt not just is 8 years the vice president but also the chair of the foreign relations committee on capitol hill. he was a senator. but even with that experience, there's no question that this is a test of his presidency. now he is currently in a meeting with the israeli prime minister of holly bennett. we're watching carefully to see what more the u. s. president might say in that bilateral meeting, if at all, we can also tell you we're watching very carefully for the white house press briefing that will have be happening a little bit later. but there is no question the us president and his team is

focused very squarely on interacting with commanders on the ground. he spent time again the situation room looking at the intelligence, coordinating with the field commanders and as well. this is something he's continuing to be briefed on throughout the day, so the us president squarely focused on getting the troops out by august 31st. even as he has been facing a turtle criticism and global criticism for his decision will be bringing that white house briefing to you later live here on out to 0 for now. thank you so much . kimberly how come outside the white house? well, let's get more from the ground and speak. try corresponding rather, brian. he's in the african capital couple, rob, just the 24 hours now after those plus, how is the capital looking today, especially that area around the airport? that's right. you have to say that it really has racked up at the tension level, especially at the airport with these continuing warnings of more possible attacks.

having said that, there are still people there hoping against hope of trying to get into the through the perimeter, with pieces of paper to try to get seats on some of the remaining flights elsewhere cobble itself compared with yesterday, thursday evening in the aftermath of the devastating explosions, you have to say it is a slightly common situation. this is the 2nd day of the weekend for most people here in coddle. and there are people out on the streets. there isn't as much tension, it seems the taliban who, who have a very high profile presence in the streets, mining checkpoints and all the rest. they don't seem as jittery. we don't hear hardly any guns by the way, which we heard yesterday. thursday evening as the taliban, what may be worried about possible attack or that we're trying to disperse crowds. people really were on edge after that attack. of course,

this all may change if there is another attack, but for now at least it does remain fairly common. people are really coming to terms of the horrors of what happens a little more than 24 hours ago of the hospitals have been treating the injured and the wounded. one of the biggest trauma hospitals here is run by an engineer called emergency. they have 3 operating sweets and all through thursday night and into friday. all of those were opera working flats out on some of the most seriously injured. what about teams has been going around visiting the hospital units and clinics and really come across some really traumatic stories of families who are still looking for. loved ones is 24 hours since it happened and there are still people accounted for people missing. i still, people tried to find out if their loved ones have survived. so it is quite dramatic . and the evacuation flights, of course continue. it has to be said that we here close to the relatively close to the airport. you have these large aircraft, the transport.