Inside State Department officials' scramble to rescue Americans, Afghan partners

An inside look at the efforts by State Department officials scrambling to rescue Americans in Afghanistan, and their Afghan partners.

When the young boy, just 13 or 14 years-old, was safely inside the gates of Kabul's international airport, U.S. State Department officials there asked two questions: Where were his parents? And why was there blood all over his clothes? "He said that somebody was killed right in front of him, and his whole family dispersed," said a State Department official, recounting their harrowing 12 days on the ground in Afghanistan. They were one of dozens of U.S. diplomats who, along with thousands of U.S. troops, helped evacuate more than 123,000 of their fellow Americans, Afghans, and other foreigners fleeing the Taliban. But that effort also left behind as many as 200 U.S. citizens who were trying to escape and the "majority" of Afghans who worked with U.S. diplomatic and military personnel, according to a senior State Department official, and now fear their lives are at risk from Taliban reprisals.