there in afghanistan. we continue our coverage right now. let's toss it over to garrett haake. garrett? >> chris jansing, thank you. i'm garrett haake. there has been an explosion outside the kabul airport. you're looking at live pictures of the airport. it's 6:30 in the evening tonight. pentagon says casualties are still unclear at this point. we know that the president has been briefed on the explosion. he was in a preplanned national security meeting this morning. white house officials are huddling as we speak. we hope to learn more from them soon. the airport has been under a terror threat all morning. this was going to our top story even before this attack. so, americans have been told to leave the airport gates and to stay away. all of this is happening as the pentagon is set to give an update in the next 30 minutes. we'll see if that remains on schedule and we'll bring it to you live when it happens.

meantime we'll try to stay on top of this with our reporters. courtney kube is at the pentagon. geoff bennett remains at the white house. and sanchez is in london. what do we know so far, courtney? >> reporter: we know very little details. so far, this appears to be an explosion that occurred outside the airport at the abby gate. for perspective, the abby gate is over on the far southeast side of the airport. it's voupded by an area that was frequented by westerners. there's a hotel, baron hotel that a lot of westerners stayed up until the taliban took over the city a week ago. it's a place where there actually has been some movement of u.s. personnel, americans, some afghans going through there. the u.s. military marines and in some cases soldiers have actually been at that gate, letting people through. there's also been some u.s. consular affairs officers, state officials at that gate. this was a place where there was

a lot of concern about a potential attack leading up to today. we've been hearing about it in the last several hours. this is a threat from isis. there was very specific intelligence that isis was look ing to target one of the gates at the airport, potentially to try to attack, kill americans, westerners, even afghan civilians. because of that, one of the real vulnerabilities that the u.s. saw was the large crowds that gathered outside the gates the last several days. they were worried some isis fighter would infiltrate those gates, someone with a suicide attack, suicide bomber or a vehicle-born improvised explosive device, someone who is able to get an explosion, a bomb inside a vehicle, drive it up, blow it up, kill civilians one of the big concerns, in addition to loss of life, is that they would breach the walls there and

potentially people could get through. at this point these are the worst case scenarios that the u.s. was concerned about. we have no idea yet any reports of casualties. we don't know any vulnerabilities or anything that's been down to the perimeter of the airport. we're still trying to figure out exactly what happened here, what this explosion was. again for perspective, this was a place where there were american military stationed. this is where americans have been going through and afghans and other westerners as part of this evacuation mission, garrett? >> courtney, i'll let you work your sources a little bit and go around the horn. this is something like the countries in uk, australia, our nato allies, folks involved in afghanistan have been worried about as well. i understand there was some intelligence from the british side, concerned about exactly the type of attack that courtney was just describing. granted, we don't know exactly what happened here. again, there were concerns about this general type of explosion or attack could happen at the gates from the uk side.

what more can you tell us about that? >> yeah, garrett, it is 3:00 p.m. here in london. all morning, the british government has been warning very, very urgently about what they have been calling the threat of a highly imminent, lethal attack on kabul airport. now these were not vague warnings. these were not general expressions of concern. this was senior members of the british government going on television and saying we are very concerned. there could be an explosion at the airport in the next couple of hours. so clearly, there is intelligence that the british government was aware of, that the u.s. government was aware of, presumably was shared more widely among the allies. as you say, we don't know exactly what has happened here, but the uk was certainly concerned about an attack at the airport. now, there are 1,000 british troops alongside american forces at kabul airport.

some of them have been stationed at the abby gate that courtney was talking about, along the southern perimeter. we do not yet have any word from the british government of casualties either among afghan civilians gathering at that great or perhaps british troops in the area. we don't yet know what is going on, on that front. but the uk has been signaling that their evacuation is coming to an end. they cannot stay in the country without the support of u.s. troops. boris johnson tried, but did not succeed, earlier this week at that virtual g7 summit to convince president biden to extend his august 31 deadline for keeping u.s. troops in the country. today the prime minister said this phase of the evacuation is coming to an end pretty soon. we don't know exactly when.

they will have to halt the process of flying out civilians and move the british focus to withdrawing uk forces. the prime minister is trying to look beyond that point, saying we will continue a diplomatic and political effort to pressure the taliban to continue to let afghans out, even after western forces are gone. but, garrett, this explosion at the airport today will complicate what was already a very, very delicate situation on the ground in kabul. >> yes, it will, almost regardless of what happened there. i understand the british armed forces minister spoke about this threat a little earlier today prior to this taking place. i want to play a little bit of what they had to say. >> intelligence over the course of the week has become ever more certain around the highly credible, imminent, lethal attack on to the airport whilst, of course, the clock is still ticking toward the end of the month. we have to share that very, very

real threat with people in kabul and advise them that they should move away from the airport, not come to the airport. >> and now geoff bennett at the white house. obviously this is the kind of information the u.s. government has as well. there's warnings from the state department to americans who might have still been in kabul overnight. talk to me about how the white house is responding to this. i mentioned at the top the president was already scheduled to have a meeting about afghanistan this morning as we were finding out about this. >> that's right, garrett. look, this scenario is certainly what this administration had feared and also what this white house had warned about, national security adviser, jake sullivan, telling us reporters in the briefing room last week that the threat in afghanistan posed by terror organizations was real and acute. president biden, in his remarks before the nation days ago, saying u.s. troops in the region, coalition forces in the region face a grave and growing threat the longer they stay

there. as you see, a live picture there of the airport, i can sort of bring you up to speed on the state of play of evacuations. this explosion has happened as the window of evacuations is closing rapidly. the pentagon had already acknowledged that as we reached this august 31st deadline, space -- available space will be reserved for troops to make sure they are safely out of country by august 31st. we heard from the state department yesterday there are roughly 1,500 americans believed to be remaining in afghanistan. we heard secretary blinken say that the state department has contacts for about 500 of those americans, that they are actively reaching out to them, trying to bring them safely to the airport. there are believed to be roughly 1,000 americans for whom the administration is frantically trying to contact. there are outside estimates that there are some 250,000 afghans who have worked alongside the u.s. mission over the last 20 years who would be eligible for the expedited visas. most of those folks will have to

remain in country after august 31st. you also heard secretary blinken say they will spare no resource, economic, diplomatic, working with allies, the u.s. working with its allies to try to grant safe passage to any afghan, any american who remains in country after august 31st. this explosion, presumed attack outside the kabul airport, you can certainly imagine how that complicates this effort and the immediate political calculus that president biden has to make here. >> geoff bennett, thank you. as we're watching aircraft still taking off from the hamid karzai international airport at kabul, we should be clear what we know and what we don't know. we know there was an explosion of some kind outside the abby gate at the airport here in afghanistan. somewhere around 6:00 local time there. we've been following reports of this at least for the last 20 or 30 minutes or so. we've been getting bits of information here. we know that this is something that u.s., uk intelligence were aware of coming into this, the

possibility that there could be some kind of terror attack here. and we know that the security situation on the ground has been a case of strange bedfellows with the united states and taliban trying to work to secure the various gates to this airport while the u.s. was completing this air lift. rob sanchez, you're in london. let's talk a little bit about the players on the ground here. because the threat here, unusually for americans who follow this war in afghanistan the last 20 years, wasn't from the taliban. they were effectively security partners now. there's been a lot of talk about isis-k, the isis affiliate in central asia. what do we know about that group and the concern that these allied intelligence agencies might have had about them trying to make a splash while the u.s. is still in afghanistan? >> reporter: yeah, garret. so isis-k is isis khorasan. khorasan refers to an area of central asia. this is the afghan affiliate of the islamic state.

it has not attracted the kind of international attention that so-called main isis in syria and iraq has captured. the trump administration did drop a massive ordinance bomb, a bomb that is basically just one level below a nuclear weapon, on this group's facilities in afghanistan a couple of years ago. there were questions at the time to what extent the use of that bomb was actually a legitimate battlefield tactic and to what extent the trump administration was just trying to make a show. but isis-k has been around for a number of years. we are used to referring to the taliban as an extremist group. they are. these isis members are far more extreme than the taliban. and, as you say, they are looking to make a splash. they are looking not only to harm americans on the way out of the country, but they are also looking to embarrass this new taliban regime, who they see, if

you can believe it, as sort of collaborators with the united states. they see armed taliban forces standing just a few yards from american troops around the perimeter of kabul airport, and they see this as a form of tr c hary. this is one of the major issues they'll find themselves contending with, a small but highly lethal, highly fanatical group of people committed to fighting them as well as the americans. garrett? >> geoff, obviously, this is the kind of thing we've been talking about in a diplomatic context the next couple of days. what will the taliban look like as a government? what will their approach be to

terrorism or isis or al qaeda operating within their country? with the caveat we don't know all that we don't know here, beyond the fact that there has been this explosion outside the airport? how do we expect the u.s. government, the state department, those contacts we've been hearing about on a tactical level between commanders on the ground in afghanistan, or the white house to coordinate with the governing authority in afghanistan that is now the taliban to deal with these kinds of situations? >> reporter: it's a great question, garrett, for which i don't specifically have a good answer. we do know that the taliban has been a bewildering and baffling partner in all of this. given that up until, you could say, two or three weeks ago, they were an adversary that the u.s. was intent on trying to eradicate. now we are heavily reliant, in some cases entirely reliant on the taliban granting safe passage to those americans and qualifying afghans to the airport owe that they can be evacuated. to the degree that this explosion changes that

relationship and changes that tower balance, that remains to be seen. we are still waiting to learn more about who is responsible, who or what group is responsible for this attack and the number and nature of the casualties, if there are any. but, yes, it certainly is one of the many decision points and one of the many areas of influence and questions that remain that president biden will certainly have to take as he makes decisions and the next steps here. >> let's focus on what we do know. the pace of evacuations from this airport has picked up substantially in the last couple of days. administration officials from the pentagon, the white house, to the state department have been very pleased with what they have seen of the air lift over the last couple of days. help set the scene for me now as we come into thursday night in kabul, where the u.s. is on pace to finish what has been this massive air lift operation. something like 100,000 people moved since kabul fell. where are they in this effort?

we've been watching some planes take off here from kabul, and how much work does the administration believe they still have left to do in the time that remains ahead of that deadline? >> reporter: the largest-known air lift in u.s. military history, as you mentioned, nearly 100,000 people since august 14th, since this air lift process started. we got more clarity on where we are in this mission yesterday from the state department. as i mentioned, you heard secretary blinken say they put a firm number, as firm as he could possibly put on the number of known americans remaining in the country, 500 merps for whom they have contact, reaching out phone, email, anywhere they can, for those americans who do want to leave, to try to get them to the airport as quickly and safely as possible. and then there is this larger number, roughly 1,000 americans that they believe to be remaining in country. the reason they can't put a hard number on that is because we heard from secretary blinken

yesterday say when americans travel overseas, the u.s. doesn't track them. it is entirely up to americans to register with the embassy when they arrive and leave. lots of folks don't do that. there might be americans who want to remain in country. up until this point, up approximate until about an hour ago when we got the breaking news of this explosion, that had been the primary focus of this administration, getting their arms around the specific number of americans who remain am country. president biden said that was his primary focus, making sure any americans who wanted to be air lifted out could be and beyond that the hundreds of thousands of afghan allies, folks who worked as interpreter, translators, staff at the various airports and military bases and embassies, making sure that they and their families were also granted safe passage. this explosion certainly upset a lot of that. and a lot of that decision making and certainly figuring out in the process of winding down this operation what comes next, garrett. >> watching, i think, the third

or fourth flight we've seen take off since we've come on the air in this hour. we know at least some traffic in that air lift is still moving from the hamid karzai airport in afghanistan. raf, i want to bring you back in. you touched on this earlier but this entire war effort has been a coalition effort with our nato allies playing a huge part. we talked a great deal in the united states about the american forces drawing down over the next few days. what's the state of play among our other allies who are remain ing? i saw something this morning about the dutch ending their continued presence in afghanistan. what remains of the uk footprint? kind of who is left here to finish the job? >> reporter: yeah, garrett, that's exactly right. one by one by one, america's european and other allies are signaling their evacuations are coming to an end. the last canadian flight was happening today. last flight of civilians. we are expecting a relatively

small number of canadian troops to be evacuated next. as i said, there's about 1,000 uk troops who are there, alongside u.s. soldiers, u.s. marines, manning the perimeter of this airport. the uk has had the second largest number of western forces in afghanistan after the united states. they have suffered the second largest number of casualties. there has been a lot of attention here that, you know, this 20-year war effort that britain has been involved in, beginning with tony blair, standing alongside george w. bush immediately after the september 11th attacks, and ending now under boris johnson's premiership, there's been a sense that this war is coming to a fairly chaotic end. we've heard relatively unusual public criticism from british officials of how the u.s. has

handled this. the british defense secretary is a former soldier. he actually got emotional during an interview last week, saying that it was pretty much inevitable that afghan allies of the uk were going to get left behind in kabul because of this timeline set by president biden. there has not been the same level, i would say, of political interest here in britain that there has been in the u.s. about the war in afghanistan. there's not much discussion about forever wars in this country in the way there is in the u.s. but the uk has suffered fewer casualties than the u.s. has. it has spent less blood, less treasure. but still it is something that is being very closely followed here in the uk, especially as british forces remain on the ground. garrett? >> geoff, i keep thinking this attack is a pretty good example of being pre of the united

states, you don't get to choose which crises you're forced to deal with. the president's critics, some in his own party, would say he has choech this outcome, this kind of evacuation, this kind of ending in afghanistan. the prime minister of israel is set to visit today, major foreign leader visit. now the president most certainly will be dealing with this in some way. talk about how the white house is continuing to juggle this massive foreign effort here in afghanistan, this massive air lift with, oh, by the way, really big and important week on their domestic front in washington, too. and the way they'll have to juggle this foreign leader visit, the challenges set before this president in august when it's supposed to be sleepy, but it almost never is when it comes to the crises that the president of the united states has to deal with. >> reporter: great point. the president is meeting with the israeli prime minister. there's no known changes to the president's schedule today.

yes, garrett, you can almost imagine the voices that will say that this process, this evacuation process should have started earlier to sort of avoid the situation that unfolding this morning. president biden, white house officials have been consistent in saying well beyond -- to be clear well beyond, before this attack happened, that any sort of exit from afghanistan would have been chaotic, would have been painful. the process we've seen play out only proves they were right to draw down this war and to try to evacuate americans and afghan allies as quickly and as safely as possible, garrett. >> geoff, raf, take a moment, take a breath. get on your phones. let's see what aelse you can find out as i bring in marc jacobson, former senior adviser to defense secretary ash carter. you've been on the phone with people in afghanistan you've been trying to get out. you're very familiar with this area. what can you tell us about what

things have been like at the abby gate where this explosion took place over the last couple of days? and a little bit about, if you would, the kind of security balance that's in place now with the u.s. and taliban trying to work together to secure this air lift and this evacuation. >> sure. the word has been chaotic and crowded. in the last couple of days, there definitely have been sort of a sea of humanity around the various gates. not just abby gate but gates of camp sullivan, the gates at baron, the north gate. multiple gates. it's crowded. there's squalor. people don't have food, water or shade for their children. last night alone, at least three infants in distress and what i will tell you is that major

general don hue and the 82nd airborne were immediate in terms of trying to respond. they're trying to do this while that's a sea of humanity that's out there. the security is really a problem. the marines and the 82nd have a job to do at the gate. but the taliban are really providing the perimeter -- outside the perimeter security. in order for people to get to abby gate they have to pass through at least two taliban checkpoints where this is where they are holding up the afghans, won't let them through. also problematic is they are holding up blue passport carrying americans. i was just on the phone, trying to help two couples where one spouse is blue passport holder and the other pass is an afghan passport holder and the taliban are holding them up. to their credit, officials at the u.s. embassy are doing everything they can. it is clear, the taliban are

violating the agreements that were in place to let americans through, and their spouses. this can't just be about bringing americans home. it has to be about bringing american families home. the biden administration is going to have to sit there and say, look, if the taliban aren't abiding to the agreement, if the security situation is eroding so much that we see incidents like today, they have to hold on longer. otherwise, americans won't get home. and certainly the hundreds of probably thousands of afghans who have special immigrant visa status, they're not getting in right now and they're not going to get in unless something changes. >> for folks watching at home, i know we hiv in a two-screen world i know you're looking at twitter and we're seeing reports about injury injuries. lot of speculation on the internet about what's going on here. we'll stick with what we mow as etry to get facts. we are still waiting what we think is an on-time pentagon briefing that will start at 10:30. we'll give you the facts as we know them. i don't want to get too far out

over our skis. there's been a lot of discussion in the last couple of days about the possibility of terror attacks on these gates. you heard it from mark. you heard it from our reporters. concern among united states officials, allied officials about the possibility of an attack like this and about the players on the ground. we talked about this with raf. mark, can you give us more context about who the other operators are in afghanistan that officials would be worried about, that even the taliban would be worried about? the prospect of whether al qaeda is still there in a significant way, isis-k presence on the ground. what can you tell us about that and how nato and the taliban, the governing authority in afghanistan, view those groups? >> i think it's likely we find out the attacks today would be isis-k. i apologize. i haven't been watching this morning. i've been focusing on the folks on the ground. one of the justifications for leaving was that the terrorist

threat is over, that we're not likely to see the threat of terrorism emanating from afghanistan as a threat to the united states and our allies. but there have been growing reports that al qaeda may be able to regroup and threaten us within two years. this is unconfirmed, but there are a lot of people about talking about getting reports of foreign fighters flowing into afghanistan. these are little reports. i hope our intelligence community has things that are more verified but al shabab, which is farfetched, but things that aren't farfetched in terms of smaller groups coming to afghanistan. and i think if you look at the taliban, isis situation, they fought each other before. they're rivals in many ways. they were rivals as fighters. it will be interesting to see what that relationship is once the taliban start governing.

>> strange bed fellows there. i want to bring in clint watts now who worked as the fbi counterterrorism decision and research fellow at the research institute. clint, i can't think of a more difficult case to investigate, to get to the bottom of what may have happened here. if there's not a claim of responsibility for a bombing like this, how does the united states go about putting together the pieces and figuring out exactly what happened outside this gate today? >> garrett, what's interesting about this one, the u.s. intelligence community had sent out warnings for americans to stay away from the gates yesterday. there were discussions already about isis-k simply trying to set up some sort of suicide bombing or attack at the gate. it seemed like there was some forewarng of this and they were trying to mitigate that this morning as much as they could.

in terms of this investigation, the culprits are smaller than you would think. what you're seeing with the taliban in terms of what's happening right now, the taliban wants the u.s. to leave. they're trying to instill some sort of order. all allied extremist groups in the area that are aligned will try to precht some sort of attack from happening and fight it out afterwards or have american target ms. the aftermath of it. in this case, isis in afghanistan, they're a rival of the taliban. this is one of their m.o., meaning they use vehicles for ieds. what we created essentially, part of the reason they're sticking to that august 31

deadline, i believe, is because of what we're seeing right now. the longer the u.s. stays there, the longer there's a chaotic scenario. this battle space is not controlled in empty speak. we'll have these spoiler attacks that are trying to bring the united states into a quagmire and put the taliban in a tough position as well. >> all right. let's take a moment to reset here a little bit. shortly before we came on the air, we learned of an explosion outside the abby gate, a gate frequented by westerners. it's across the street from a popular hotel. outside the abby gate of the hamid karzai international airport in kabul. since then, we have not been able to confirm if there are any casualties and, if so, how many. we are waiting a pentagon briefing set to start any minute now that might begin to answer some of these questions. we've watched several flights take off from the airport in the intervening time. we've heard from our reporters on the ground, both in washington and london, about the possibility that this was

something that intelligence was aware of. in fact, americans had been warned against. other western citizens had been warned against this possibility and told to stay away from that gate. we still have clint watts with us. clint, to me, this also highlights how much more difficult this air lift is going to be as we get into the final days, as the pentagon starts to, in the term of art, retrograde the forces that have been conducting this air lift, protecting this airfield, to evacuate your rear guard, as it were seems even more dangerous than what they've been doing the last week or so. >> that's exactly right, garrett. from now until the last u.s. force are out, we're in a very precarious situation. admiral tsvaridis was talking about that on "morning joe," and he is absolutely right. we are one moment away from blackhawk down scenario.

what we forget is while we hear terms like the taliban is taking control or taking over, they do not control all of kabul. they do not control all of afghanistan. there's many competing interests on the ground. since the u.s. showed up there last week, undoubtedly extremist groups that want to attack u.s. targets on the way out or foreign actors that might want to embrace different extremist groups. think of scenarios where we've heard of russian influence actors working with extremists to try to target americans last year. that was one of the new stories we were talking about. it becomes an indefensible target for the u.s. over time. and the town is not controlled, the taliban don't control the town. they do need to move essentially to a place where they can more securely extract americans or come up with alternative plans and do it quickly. >> clint, as i'm talking to you, an alert just went out from the u.s. embassy, warning u.s.

citizens against traveling to the gate. this is all happening in real time. we're watching night fall on kabul, afghanistan. i'm also told that that pentagon briefing we've been hoping to start any minute now has been delayed. i think they're in as much a fact-finding mission that we're in. i want to go back to geoff bennett at the white house, if i still have him. geoff, are we learning anything more about how the white house is responding to this, what information they're getting? obviously, this is the kind of thing where they were already in a national security meeting this morning, we believe, when these first reports came in. what's their posture toward all of this as the story develops here? >> i can tell you what we know about the posture of the president and white house officials. it's really all of us taking visual cues. we see the marines standing guard outside the west wing doors, our significant mal that the president is in the west wing, in the oval office most likely, being updated about what's happening. often times this is a real-time, rolling scenario. people go down to the situation

room and get briefed there from pentagon officials. the fact that the pentagon briefing is moving from 10:30, as it was previously scheduled, to much later in the day, gives us some sense that, yes, they are gathering information in real time and making decisions accordingly, garrett. >> i'm joined now by david rhode, executive editor for the new yorker.com and msnbc contributor. he was kidnapped by the taliban in 2008 and held for seven months in pakistan. he has rare expertise on all of these issues here. david, i wonder what your take is as you're watching the coverage here. you are familiar with this airport, familiar with that area. talk a little bit about the challenges of trying to continue this operation we've been watching several flights take off since we've come on the air, even under the circumstances of this explosion and trying to kind of continue that effort in a very challenging security situation. >> yeah. i think it's important to sort

of secure the area and protect american personnel, but i would say more broadly, it's vital to continue this evacuation. what isis is trying to do is to try to get us to stop this evacuation. they want the americans to be seen as betraying the estimated 300,000 afghan allies who worked with us over the last 20 years. it's important to not overreact to this. i also -- i hope the biden administration doesn't sort of throw up its hands and say look at the chaos here. the president's decision to pull all u.s. troops out of afghanistan helped create the situation. afghan forces, obviously, failed to protect kabul. but we need to think about this. lastly, if we just leave afghanistan, will the terrorist threat from that country simply go away? we pulled out of iraq and ended up back in iraq. so again, i hope the loss of life is small. i hope they should be very careful in protecting american lives now in kabul.

but this shows how complicated a challenge we face. >> yeah. i think even if the president walked out of this meeting and decided he wanted to be out an hour ago, i don't know how they could possibly get the thousands of american troops, equipment, civilians that they're still trying to move out of there in a hurry. can you speak to, david, the challenges that you have the 82nd airborne, the turks, the taliban all trying to work together to secure an international airport with multiple gates in a city where multiple different groups may want to do harm to any of the above? >> it's very difficult. and that was -- i'm not -- i guess as a country, we have wrestled with this issue for 20 years. how do we counter jihadists, some of whom want to come and carry out attacks in the united states? we've had these huge missions in iraq and afghanistan, and those haven't worked.

there was an argument that the smaller troop levels, several thousand troops in iraq and a number in syria, and even the roughly 2,500 that were left in afghanistan would act as a stabilizing force for local security forces. anyway, we're in a mess right now. all these countries joined us. we promised to give them air lift for their forces as well. but i think it's critical, again, to not overreact to this attack, to not -- will we let an isis attack curb our military operations in another part of the world? would we just stop what our military is doing because of a single isis car bomb? i pray very few people have been hurt or died. but we need to continue this evacuation for our allies, both the brits, australians and many countries that joined us there, and for the afghans who helped us over the last 20 years.

>> geoff, from the white house perspective here, obviously, we talked earlier about the enormous success of this air lift over the last couple of days, but also the president and some of his democratic allies have talked about the fact that they knew this was going to be messy. there's no good way to end a war and to get everyone out. he has taken a ton of flack in the press, from republicans, from some democrats, for the nature of this. how does the white house -- they put the president out there a little bit. one short news conference. he has done one full-length interview about afghanistan. how do they feel they are shaping the way that americans think about this withdrawal and the possibility that this could get ugly, that it could remain -- it's a war. like a real flesh and blood war until the bitter end. >> and there are a range of unintended consequences when you try to wind down a 20-year war. it's a great question that you ask. the white house would make the

case that they have tried to manage the expectations of americans, both from national security council, you had jake sullivan making clear to the american people that there exists this grave threat, this real risk, this real, palpable risk for americans, afghan allies and certainly u.s. troops and coalition forces. and so one of the things that i got a text from a white house official saying that the president has been consistent all along in saying that when you try to draw down a war and get troops out, certainly in this case americans and afghan allies out, that speed is security. that's one of the reasons that leading up to today, this past week, where the white house would say every day the number was exponen tichlt ally higher than it was the before when talking about the number of folks who have been air lifted out. they touted the turnaround from what had been a chaotic start and now you have 100,000 people

safely evacuated out of afghanistan since this air lift started august 14th. what happens this morning, this presumed attack outside the kabul airport, this certainly -- i shouldn't say certainly. one would imagine it closes the window further than it was already closing given this operation was winding down in a couple of days, garrett. >> you raise an interesting question. i wonder how this affects the continued effort to get americans and civilians out of the country. clint watts, if we still have you, we heard the last couple of days about a couple of helicopter missions, air lifts within an air lift, the u.s., military or cia or what have you have less of the confines of that airport to pick up american citizens from hotels and other locations. the pentagon has tried to say as little about those efforts as you can. can you imagine a scenario in which that might be become the new best way if not the only way to get in and out of that airport, if there's a threat perceived against the gates and against crowds that may gather

there remain? >> garrett, one way to think about this, time is the enemy and i do agree with the comment speed is security. the u.s. has been there basically for ten days. in ten days, all of the american adversaries that want to cause them harm start to make plans and hurt americans in the country and its allies. what do they do? they start moving people into place and building plans for ieds. they start looking at ways to hit soft targets, the choke points around the airport. that's what we're seeing here today, a soft target, impossible for the taliban and the u.s., which were enemies, by the way, to actually work together to try to secure this area. so, doing those helicopter missions out in the city of kabul and surrounding area gets more and more dangerous with each day. your adversaries in the country start to watch what your patterns are. i'm sure the military and the pentagon know that, which is why they're somewhat sticking to this timeline that they have to

move. it's become a magnet essentially. instead of these airborne operations, all of which are dangerous -- we saw what happened in mogadishu when one helicopter crashed and another, you could have a situation unfold that could be completely unmanageable. you could have american hostages. they're trying to avoid these scenarios. alternative means to get allied afghans and what few americans are remaining in the country out, traditional areas of the northern alliance, which going back to the kick-off of the war. those were the entities that we used to work with or have coordination with. separately, many of the fighters that still remaining to fight, they're staying really to fight the taliban, have moved out of the areas. so ultimately you'll see a trickle of people increasingly in those northern border areas,

uzbekistan and other areas, trying to do extractions, maybe one off, two off in the northern areas, picking places where there's a lower terror presence and morale is and more safety on the ground. >> going from moving thousands of people a day to suggesting that the best option may be to walk through hundreds of miles of afghan countryside is a pretty dramatic escalation of the problem here, though, clint. i have to think, if you can't pardon this airport militarily at this phase, and i don't think that's possible, and if you can't do much to reduce the footprint quickly, i think that's probably not possible either, do you harden this airport? do you protect aamericans by hardening the airport diplomatically? if this, in fact, is a terrorist attack, is this a problem for the taliban to solve in a certain extent here? they are the defacto governing authority of this country now. i wonder if there is opportunities for the u.s. to lean on them even further and

say look, the taliban owns this problem. it's up to them, am part, to make sure that americans can get out of this country safely and end this war as cleanly as can still be achieved at this point. >> garrett, i think that's ideal but unlikely. we have several examples of what happens when there's a rapid change of power. two examples are mogadishu and somalia and baghdad in iraq. that was kind of the story in 2003. we rapidly collapsed country, quickly took baghdad, installed a government to hold things in place, tried to embrace security. and with each day that situation became more and more protracted, became more and more dangerous. insurgencies started to mount, cripple activities started to take advantage of it. i don't see it likely that the taliban, while we say they have taken over afghanistan, they definitely do not control afghanistan. they don't have the kind of structure, while they've taken a

lot of weapons and armorment, they've moved so quickly they haven't even secured their own rear areas. there's lots of pockets with different and competing interests. if i could emphasize anything about this, you're going to see intense competition between groups in afghanistan. there are terror groups to the north, like the islamic movement of uz bechlt kistan, a very different thing from just calling something al qaeda. there's al qaeda roots to the taliban, which are more in control. and then there's rivals like isis in khorasan. that group is antagonistic to the taliban. they want the taliban to hurt as well. it creates a complex stew. with so few military on the ground and intelligence resources really being retracted and also being focused, it's going to be difficult for us to instill any sort of secure environment over the next one to two weeks where we can feel good about what we're doing, feel safe and not think that american troops are going to be at an

extreme risk. >> clint, thank you. stick around. i want to bring back nbc's courtney kube at the pentagon. she's been working her source at the pentagon, trying to get more detail here. what do you know? >> reporter: unfortunately we don't know a whole lot more. we're still trying to figure out how many casualties there were and the extent of it, and who they were. we know that there were afghan civilians outside this gate at the time of this explosion. it's worth pointing out, too, this is an area where there had been americans and afghans going through this gate, the abby gate, in recent days. over the weekend, when there's this new threat that was emerging from isis, the u.s. worked with the taliban to expand out the perimeter a little bit. they actually -- the taliban checkpoints that were there were pushed back a bit. it made for more room for civilians, afghans trying to get through these gates. they had more room to gather in there. it sort of dispersed the crowd.

but there still have been crowds there in that there still have been a lot of people gathered around there. this was a potentially large number of people that could have been there at the time of this explosion, or explosions. there are some reports there may have been more than one. we're still trying to get to the bottom of it. again to give our viewers a sense of this area, this was an area that was heavily frequented by westerners. even since the taliban moved in to kabul ten days or so ago now. but before that, this was an area where there were a lot of westerners who stayed and worked. the baron hotel is well known to people who have been living and working in kabul am recent years. what we're trying to find out now, though, is again where was the explosion precisely? there's some reports it may have been closer to the baron hotel as opposed to all the way toward the abby gate but that is a very short distance. it's a very walkable, short distance. it's pretty much a straight

shot, too. that may not even make as big a difference as far as potential for casualties. what it could tell us is whether the airport perimeter was breached or not. i think we need to also take a look at -- obviously, officials don't know who was behind this yet but who may have had the momentum or the interest in carrying out an attack hike this. >> right. >> and all signs would point to more likely isis than certainly a taliban attack. the taliban have been working in conjunction and coordination with the military. but isis has a real vested interest in an attack like this. in most cases, large isis is the enemy of the taliban there. they want to do something to disrupt what's happening. they disrupt both the u.s. and the taliban intent of getting americans out. an attack like this does exactly that. with the threat, the gates have been shut down. people have not been able to get through. it has put a real -- thrown a real wrench into the evacuation

efforts in recent hours and now this. i mean, it's causing casualties, causing chaos. stopping the evacuation mission. this is the kind of thing that isis would want to do. and it is consistent with a threat stream of what they were hoping and planning to try to carry out in recent days, geoff. >> let's expand on that a bit with nbc's andrea mitchell, who is on the phone. you have the best intell and diplomatic sources in washington. what are you hearing about the possibility that courtney laid out, that this could be isis-k trying to disrupt this effort here? >> reporter: exactly. you're exactly right. two u.s. intelligence officials telling me they have no precise tricks yet for today's ied attack but their assumption, best information is that it was, indeed, caused by isis-k. this say splinter isis group that is considered an adversary

of the taliban. it is entirely in their interest to disrupt this as much as they can. they know there's a deadline. the taliban wants them out. the u.s. and president has said they will stay longer if there are interruptions. this is clearly an interruption in evacuations. and because of the security threat, he may end up deciding that they cannot extend, and that would be something that they might find completely credible. of course, this would deny the administration its process and hope to get those remaining 1,000 americans out that they've been trying to track down. there's 1,500, but 500 they've identified and been in touch with. there are 1,000 others that secretary blinken said they want to get out. after that, the expanded group of afghans who are at risk. only yesterday secretary blinken told us at a news conference

when pressed about the threats, he said it is hard to overstate the complexity and danger of this effort. we're operating in a hostile environment, in a city and country now controlled by the taliban with a very real possibility of an isis-k attack. we're taking every precaution, but this is very high risk. so, that's sullivan on saturday started talking about it. zeroing in on the isis threat. in the last couple days this has continuously been the explanation for the president's decision to go with the august 31st deadline despite a lot of bipartisan pressure in congress to extend that. again this has interrupted the flow of evacuations and made it impossible for americans to safely get to the airport, to the gates as you know as we have been reporting. last night there was a warning and this was confirmed at the time that it is because of the isis continuing threat of an

attack that americans were told to no longer go to the gate and obviously that would also indicate allies a coalition forces. brits and others have been saying they are stopping evacuations because in the closing days the u.s. military that is providing protection internally for all of the coalition forces that the u.s. military is winding down. >> okay, andrea, stick around. i will show the specificity on this. it has been rescheduled and it comes to order and we will learn much more given the information that was available to all of these intel agencies across the spectrum of american allies prior to this event. the idea of whoever is behind this explosion, the flow of

americans and afghans out of the country. we're going to pivot to that part of the story and bring in gabe gutierrez. he is at the dulles center where thousands of evacuees have been sheltering. how concerned are they about the possibility of this air lift continuing and what else are they telling you? >> garrett, they're extremely concerned and worried within the past few minutes. we spoke with a man, ahmad, who we have been speaking with. he found an organization called rising peace. he has been trying to desperately help evacuate, giving guidance, directions, trying to help get people out of afghanistan. he says he has been able to get out 68 people including 17 immediate family members. we just texted with him a few

moments ago. he said he knew six families near those gates a short time ago around the time of the explosion. he lost contact with them at this point. there is a desperate scramble for information from him and families across the country that still have relatives in afghanistan that are american citizens or perhaps that work with americans during the war and there is still searching for the latest on what is happening there. behind me as you mentioned this dulles expo center, you know the virginia governor says at least 6,000 afghans have arrived in virginia. some of them have been held here. we understand it has been several hundred, and there has been a constant flow of afghans rolling out of here on bus after bus after bus. they're being transported to military bases across the country, texas, wisconsin, one

said they were going to a base in new jersey, a little bit earlier today. as we're getting this breaking news of this explosion in afghanistan, at least one explosion in afghanistan, you have to think of all of the relatives here in the united states who, you know just a few hours ago were trying to find out any investigation they could and how they're loved ones may have left afghanistan, there is now a potential of casualties in the area and they're trying to find that out against. again one man that had a direct hand in trying to evacuate immediate family members says he knows of six family that's were in the area of that explosion just a short time ago. he lost contact with them and he is desperately trying to find out more information. >> so we lost, we have not seen any aircraft taking off in probably the last ten or 15 minutes. what are you hearing about the efforts to restore the air lift

operation. how does the u.s. state department view the conversations necessary here with the taliban and the other allied partners to try to get this massive air lift operation back up and running? >> i don't see how they can until they resolve what the source of the explosion is and make sure they secure the perimeter. this is a real problem. just referring back again to what secretary blinken said. we know he is at the white house. he will be visiting and everything is piling on one on top of the other. we'll get the most information from the pentagon briefing. one of the things blinken said that we're on track to complete the mission by august 31st provided the taliban continues to cooperate and there are no disruptions to the process.

so you see they may have that contingency, but i can't seem them resuming flights until they make sure the airport is secure. >> to that end, there is not a second option to get 6,000 american troops out of the airport. there is not a convoy option. you can't march 6,000 troops through. how do they tactically approach this issue here? you talked about the idea of do we know the perimeter is breeched. what are the steps that need to be taken here not just to resume this air lift, but for the fact that these 6,000 american soldiers and marines that came into the country can't simply be

left there when the time line is up. >> it will be precarious as the numbers dwindle, right? the last line out will be the remaining people there. there is bagram that is not right there in kabul, it's in the out skirts, but that can be using potentially again. they could move back their secure portion of it for some sort of an extraction or they could actually move to different, you know, countries in the region where they have a greater security perimeter and better presence. so it would not be unheard of. i don't know what they are going to do it is a second airport or second field and those are the things that even when i was in the army we would train for scenarios related to airfield seizure and the 82nd airborn is

the right unit to do that kind of operation. the 101st airborne is similar to that. i'm sure the planners are working on this. how do we get everyone out safely if the situation erodes terribly, if the last flights are moving out, what will we do if something were to happen with the last extraction flights, how will we deal with that. they are probably looking and exploring those options nap is one of the most tense operations planned in any recent period. they were in afghanistan for 20 years. they know the area, they do have assets in localities. there are allies on the ground despite what you might hear regarding the taliban. there are people willing to help and they have military bases that they just left in recent weeks that they could exploit or

use temporarily for a few hours or days to ensure the safe passage of u.s. military out in the country. >> david rode, you're going to get the last word for this hour. how vital is it that this operation get back up and running. >> i don't think we want to give isis a win and stop this effort. it's my job to be hard on all of the administrations, but the trump and biden administration decided to pull all of the troops out of afghanistan, we have lost that war. the taliban and isis were simply waiting for us to leave. if the white house saying this is all chaos, it's not our fault, they do have some responsibility for poor planning here. i think it is vital to continue to evacuation effort. we will get them out, we will

not be stopped. >> all right, david, thank you. we have a bit more breaking news to add to this, the pentagon spokesman saying we can confirm the explosion at a gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of u.s. and civilian casuacasualties. another explosion a short distance from the abbey gate also took place. our breaking news coverage continues now with craig melvin. good thursday morning. craig melvin here. we continue to follow breaking news in afghanistan. explosion outside of the airport in kabul. expected to be an ied attack. word a few moments ago from pentagon spokesman.