Appearing on CNN early Friday morning, national security and terrorism expert Juliette Kayyem bluntly explained the situation on the ground in Afghanistan following an attack on refugees and U.S. military on Thursday, and said getting people out of the country will depend upon the Taliban.
Speaking with hosts Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett, the CNN contributor was asked what is next for President Joe Biden's administration in light of the bombing attack.
"Help us out with some of the criticism that the Biden administration has been getting for relying on the Taliban for securing that perimeter," co-host Jarrett asked. "In your mind, is that fair criticism or really was there no other solution?"
'I think that it is the latter," Kayyem replied. "My general feeling about criticism is, and what is the alternative? We lost a war, the Taliban is in charge of the country, they are giving us clearly access to move people out of the airport over 100,000 now and are trying to protect it."
"Our interests, it will be hard for people to get their head around, our interests align right now," she continued. "They want us out, but in a way that gets our U.S. citizens out and the Afghans who may deserve it. and so that alignment of interests, both get us out and also to stop ISIS, means that there is going to be a nexus."
"At some stage there will be a point of interaction between the person and our military, and you can push it out another two miles," she elaborated. "There is going to be that moment, right? And so that is the challenge, but what is your alternative at this stage?
"What we're going to do now as, described by the Pentagon, is obviously try to protect those entrances better, do more vetting," Kayyem continued. "The Taliban's interests are ours again, so we have to protect the area. There is clearly operations going on outside the airport, covert operations to try to disrupt the ISIS threat and then I was surprised how public the president was yesterday essentially describing covert operations or at least hinting to them that are going on outside of the airport to extract people."
'"If you ask me what does post-August 31 look like, it is those kinds of extractions either with the assistance of allies or even the Taliban to get more Americans out for those who cannot make it in the next days," she added.
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