ISIS-K: the terrorist group that keeps the US on alert 1:47
(CNN) -
A serious, ISIS-specific terrorist threat looms over the frenzied end of America's pullout from Afghanistan eventually running out quickly to rescue 1,500 Americans and with the fate of fleeing Afghans growing darker. .
President Joe Biden is so far meeting his Tuesday deadline for the final exit from a 20-year war in Afghanistan, after an initially chaotic downsizing that has since turned into a gigantic and daring airlift that is pulling out more than 82,000 people from Kabul.
But in an alarming sign of the deteriorating security environment, early Thursday morning local time, US diplomats in Kabul suddenly warned US citizens to "immediately" leave several airport gates, citing security threats.
The warning came hours after a US defense official told CNN that officials were alarmed by a "very specific stream of threats" about the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, which planned to attack crowds outside the airlift.
About 1,500 people remain in Afghanistan who could be Americans, according to Blinken
Inside, thousands of troops are braving testing conditions and intense heat to fill cargo planes with American and Afghan citizens who aided American troops and officials and fear dire punishment from the Taliban.
The question now is how long the Pentagon will allow for the evacuation operation before it moves on to an extraction mission for thousands of soldiers and materiel, which could take several days and reduce noncombatant departures.
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That means a race against time to find and extract the remaining Americans who want to leave, and likely means that thousands of Afghan translators and others could be left behind, in a final tragedy in America's longest war.
But the intense military mobilization has given Biden some political space, after the lightning collapse of the Afghan state and military directly contradicted his predictions that the Taliban would not suddenly seize power and force the United States into a hasty retreat. and humiliating.
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So far, the operation has not cost a single American life. Biden told Americans this week that he would not send any more of his sons and daughters to die in Afghanistan. And the fact that US troops are not actively seeking to detain US citizens far from the airport on Taliban territory, apart from a few publicly known examples, suggests that the White House is keeping the risks of the operation as low as possible. But Washington is on the edge, hostage to events on the other side of the world. Any death, terrorist attack or exchange of fire by the United States with the Taliban could turn a crisis that is on the edge of the knife for the president into a full-blown political disaster, in addition to the pain and loss that they would cause.
As hundreds of Afghans hit American soil, meanwhile, attention is shifting to how the United States will absorb the refugees, and some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, are already attacking their arrival in a toxic political offensive.
The Taliban ask women not to leave the house 0:42
ISIS-K poses a 'very real' threat
American troops were already in a deeply vulnerable position at the airport, the last part of Afghanistan they now control, after the enemy they spent two decades fighting, the Taliban, swept through the country in a lightning advance.
But the additional threat from ISIS-K makes the situation worse.
The group is a sworn enemy of the Taliban and the United States, so it has every reason to cause chaos.
It showed its terrible power in Kabul earlier this year in an attack on a girls' school that killed dozens of people, mostly girls.
Thousands of Afghans have been crushing Taliban checkpoints in recent days, seeking access to gates controlled by American and allied soldiers.
Any attack would have the potential to cause terrible casualties.
The ranks of ISIS-K are believed to have swelled thanks to fugitives from Afghan prisons and potentially several hardened fighters from Syria.
This is what the evacuation from Kabul airport looks like
"It is difficult to overstate the complexity and danger of this effort," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. "We are operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban with the very real possibility of an ISIS attack."
Blinken gave the most detailed breakdown yet of the number of Americans who may be in Afghanistan. He said US forces had so far withdrawn at least 4,500 US citizens. He said the United States had provided 500 other Americans with instructions on how to get to the airport safely. He said officials were flooding the possible 1,000 remaining citizens with emails, texts and calls. But he cautioned that some may have left of their own free will or, in fact, may not be American at all.
Among the Americans still in the country are about 20 San Diego students and their families who traveled to Afghanistan this summer and were unable to reach the Kabul airport, the school and congressional officials told CNN.
Since Aug. 14, more than 82,300 people have left Kabul, and in an intense 24-hour period Tuesday through Wednesday, about 19,000 people departed on 90 U.S. and coalition flights, Blinken said.
But the fact that even American citizens appear to have trouble accessing the airport means that potentially tens of thousands of Afghans eligible for resettlement in the United States and elsewhere may have already lost their opportunities.
Latin American countries offer to help displaced people from Afghanistan, especially women and girls
The Taliban had already said that they would prevent Afghan citizens from reaching the airport.
But officials in Washington said they would do everything possible to remove as many Afghans as possible before the deadline.
"They will not be forgotten," Blinken said.
But perhaps disturbingly for those who want to leave in the next few days, he stressed that the US effort to save Afghans with ties to this country will not cease once the troops leave.
It is not clear how that will happen.
"Along with American citizens, nothing is more important to me as Secretary of State than doing the right thing for the people who have been working side by side with American diplomats at our embassy," Blinken said. "We are relentlessly focused on getting locally recruited personnel out of Afghanistan and out of harm's way."
But the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that his office was receiving messages from many Afghans seeking safe exits.
When asked if US forces could extract all remaining eligible Afghans and citizens, McCaul responded, "I don't think it's humanly possible."
He also cited what he said were credible stories of translators who had worked for the United States being intercepted at the airport, taken home to see their families killed, and then beheaded.
CNN has not independently verified the reports.
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A growing political storm
Afghans who manage to leave the country are not transferred directly to the US Many are being transferred to centers in third countries, including Qatar.
But those who have undergone security screenings and health checks have already begun to enter the United States.
Several thousand evacuees have arrived in the United States, including 1,200 who have arrived in the Washington area, said Major General Hank Taylor, deputy director of Joint Regional Operation.
A CBS News poll released over the weekend found that 81% of Americans thought the government should help Afghans who had worked with US officials, troops and intelligence agencies to come to the United States.
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But his arrival has already unleashed what could become a new front in the bitter immigration battle that Trump and other extremist Republicans have used to rise to power.
While he was still president, Trump made a deal with the Taliban for withdrawal, behind the back of the Afghan government, which, according to experts, contributed to the rapid collapse of the state.
And he made few arrangements for the tens of thousands of Afghans who risked their lives to help US forces and officials for 20 years and are owed shelter in return.
Now Trump is slandering many of those same Afghans, claiming, as he did with Mexico at the start of his 2016 campaign, that the Taliban are not sending the "best" people in the country to the United States.
"We can only imagine how many thousands of terrorists have been flown from Afghanistan to neighborhoods around the world," Trump said in an incendiary statement Tuesday.
"What a terrible failure. DO NOT VET. How many terrorists will Joe Biden bring to America?"
In fact, one of the reasons the situation has been so chaotic has been the intense investigation Afghans have had to endure to obtain special immigrant visas for the United States.
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But the former president is not alone among politicians seeking to weaponize Afghans who arrive to activate their grassroots voters. Ohio Senate hopeful JD Vance, who is competing for Trump's loyalty in a packed Republican primary, made a similar attempt in a web video this week, raising the possibility that the issue is a burning concern of conservatives in the United States. based on next year's midterm elections. Biden will seek to counter that demagoguery when he holds a virtual meeting with bipartisan governors who have shown their willingness to temporarily offer shelter or help resettle Afghans brought from Kabul.
And there was a rare and hopeful note on Wednesday after a heartbreaking week of news from Afghanistan, when the US military announced that a girl born on a cargo plane after a flight from Kabul to US Ramstein airbase in Germany had been called Reach, by the callsign of the aircraft.
CNN's Jim Sciutto, Tim Lister, Jennifer Hansler and Michael Conte contributed to this story.
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