COOPER: "Breaking news. The warning within the hour to Americans waiting outside of the Kabul airport. The embassy in Kabul telling them to "leave immediately." And those not there yet to stay away unless otherwise instructed. The danger not specified but for now the stated concern from the president on down has been potential attacks on crowds by groups like the local ISIS affiliate. Joining us now senior national security analyst Peter Bergen, author of the new book "The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden." Also with us CNN intelligence security analyst and former CIA officer Bob Bayer. So Peter, given what we’ve already heard from officials about ISIS-k and their desire to create mayhem at the airport, does a warning like this surprise you?"
BERGEN: "Not really. This is a sort of hostage crisis of the Biden Administration’s own making where on the one side you have the day certain August 31st and now you have this, you know, credible threat of violence which could be from ISIS-k, but we can’t also discount Al-Qaeda which has presence in 19 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan according to the U.N. The U.N. is also reporting over several months thousands of fighters have poured in to support the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. ISIS-k has an ability to strike at will in Kabul. It bombed a girls school. Dozens of kids died in May. There are other groups that would love to carry out an attack that would embarrass the United States and also kill Americans."
COOPER: "Bob, how difficult is it for the U.S. now to kind of gather information about potential threats in a timely manner given they’re now isolated at the airport, and there’s no longer an Afghan government that they’re dealing with?"
BAER: "Well, Anderson, there’s no way to meet agents right now in Kabul or any part of the Afghanistan. So that’s what we’re left with are airplanes and intercepts. And so undoubtedly what the Biden Administration is picking up, The National Security Agencies intercept the phone calls where you’ve got people calling each other looking for Americans, and they know what the ISIS numbers are. And this is what has alarmed them at this point because the Taliban is not a unified movement. It doesn’t have full control of Kabul. And one of these radical zealot groups very easily could grab an American, take them hostage or worse."