this is several miles of perimeter around the kabul airport. secure that so that you could impose some sort of order and discipline on the process. that will happen in that can happen in hours, not days. now, the numbers of tens of thousands of afghans who have served alongside american forces and american diplomats, those, of course, are those folks are not all at the airport. they re scattered around afghanistan. so, while we can impose discipline at the airport and impose order and get flights moving on time, the real challenge will be how do we get people who are not yet at the airport to the airport itself. general, can i is there sorry, brianna. one more question i wanted to ask. as we re seeing this go south very quickly, the taliban has taken control of the country, there are people in the united states who suggested, why doesn t the u.s. go back in? it s broken now. why don t we go back and fix it
i want to get to the breaking news. no flights in and out of kabul right now, suspending all air operations because the u.s. military, frankly, needs to get a grip of the situation. that s right, jon. you ve seen those images. it s absolute pandemonium. nick paton walsh said there s a crush of humanity trying to press their way into the airport. you ve seen, of course, those harrowing images that i don t think any of us will ever forget easily of afghans desperately trying to hold on to the fuselage of an airplane with their bare hands, so desperate they are to get out of the country. the u.s. had laid razor wire around, trying to stop people
situation there. cnn s kylie atwood is live at the state department. look, ckylie, the situation changing so quickly. unclear that a briefing two hours from now, what it will cover. the situation could change a lot until then. what are the plans? reporter: i ll give you a little bit of good news here, john. the state department says all the u.s. diplomats at the embassy were safely evacuated from the embassy to the airport. the bad news, however, is what we re seeing there. incredible images of afghans flooding the runway, holding on to american planes as they try to get out. of course, that is the reason that the pentagon just announced this morning they are temporarily suspending all of these flights out of the country. that is the only way pore people to get out of country right now. so, resuming those flights will mean that u.s. diplomats, u.s. contractors can get back on these flights and get out of the country. and then the question, of course, is what about these afghans who w
again? what do you say to that? there s no going back. there s no rewinding the tape. there is no afghan army. there are no afghan police. there is no afghan government. the taliban are in charge. so, we re in no position to reverse what we see today. the best we can do is to cope with the circumstances at the airport. obviously, prioritize the evacuation of americans, but then right behind them, the afghans who have served alongside of us. you mentioned getting some of those folks to the airport. because that is the only way out at this point of afghanistan. we just have to be clear about where afghan allies to america are right now. some are stuck in the provinces. they re not going to get through taliban checkpoints into kabul. a lot of people are holed up in their homes. even if they might be awaiting something with a special
hundreds if not thousands of taliban fighters in relatively close proximity to each other and a chaotic scene all around t them, there is always the opportunity for things to go very wrong, indeed. and i think that s why you are seeing the u.s. military really try to expedite this effort to the best of their ability, to get americans out as quickly as possible so that they can try to leave as quickly as possible. because it s not safe for the u.s. military either. john kirby, the pentagon spokesman, clarissa, told us the timeline they re operating on is that they have until that end date that president biden set, which is august 31st. that is more than two weeks away. can you imagine a situation where the taliban is okay with the u.s. running operations out of the airport for two more weeks, or do you think this is going to be a much shortened operation?