12 US troops, 60 Afghans killed in Kabul blast, IS claims the attack

AP , AFP , Thursday 26 Aug 2021

Two suicide bombers transformed a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover

Kabul Airport Explosion
Kabul Airport Explosion

  • No sign of 'collusion' between Taliban and Islamic State in attack, says Biden
  • Biden reaffirms Aug 31 troop pullout deadline from Afghanistan
  • US President vows to avenge American deaths in Kabul blast
  • 12 US troops killed 15 wounded, US says airlift will continue
  • 60 Afghan killed and 143 injured, casulty numbers expected to increase
  • Islamic State claims the Kabul airport attack
  • US Army conducted controlled explosion destroying equipment at the airport 
  • Biden postpones meeting with Israeli PM Naftali Bennet 
  • Stocks fall after Kabul bombing
  • World leaders condemn 'despicable' Kabul airport attack
  • UN chief calls permanent Security Council meeting on Afghanistan

Twelve US servicemen were killed and 15 injured in two suicide bombing attacks in Kabul on Thursday by Islamic State militants, the head of US Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie said.

60 Afghans died in the blast too with 142 other injured according to a report by AP.

US officials warn, however, that the numbers may grow.

Biden reaffirms Aug 31 troop pullout deadline, Vows to avenge US deaths
 
President Joe Biden vowed Thursday to complete the evacuation of American citizens and others from Afghanistan despite a deadly suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport. He also promised to avenge the deaths, declaring to the extremists responsible: 'We will hunt you down and make you pay.''
 
He reaffirmed August 31 as the deadline for US troops to leave Afghanistan, in the wake of a deadly attack on Kabul airport.
 
Biden, who earlier vowed to continue the evacuation of civilians from Kabul, said there remained an "opportunity for the next several days, between now and the 31st, to be able to get them out."
 
No sign of 'collusion' between Taliban and Islamic State in attack: Biden
 
US President Joe Biden said Thursday he has seen no evidence that the Taliban colluded with Islamic State militants in carrying out the deadly attacks in Kabul.
 
"There is no evidence thus far that I've been given as a consequence by any of the commanders in the field that there has been collusion between the Taliban and ISIS in carrying out what happened today," Biden said in an address at the White House.
 
IS-K CLAIMS THE ATTACK
 
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide blast at the airport in Kabul on Thursday during the US-led evacuation from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the SITE monitoring agency said.
 
The bomber "was able today to penetrate all the security fortifications" and get within "five meters (16 feet)" of US forces before detonating his explosives belt, the jihadist group's propaganda arm Amaq said, according to a translation by SITE.Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul's airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover.
 
Biden Bennet meeting postponed
 
President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have postponed their White House meeting as Biden focused his attention on dealing with the aftermath of deadly explosions near the Kabul airport that targeted U.S. troops and Afghans seeking to flee their country after the Taliban takeover.
 
Biden and Bennett were scheduled to meet late Thursday morning for their first face-to-face conversation since Bennett became Israel's prime minister in June. The two will instead meet on Friday.
 
AIRLIFT WILL CONTINUE 

McKenzie said that the US airlift in Kabul will continue despite the attack.

"We continue to execute our number one mission, which is to get as many evacuees and citizens out of Afghanistan," said General Kenneth McKenzie.

"ISIS will not deter us from accomplishing the mission," he said.

Another huge blast heard in Kabul, Taliban say it was not an attack
 
A huge blast rocked Kabul early Friday, heard by AFP staff hours after a deadly twin bomb attack at the airport that was claimed by the Islamic State.
 
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahadid, however, tweeted that it was a controlled explosion by US forces destroying equipment at the airport and Kabul residents should not worry.
 
UN chief calls permanent Security Council meeting on Afghanistan
 
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called a meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council to discuss the chaotic situation in Afghanistan, diplomats said.
 
Guterres sent letters formally inviting the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China to meet on Monday, the diplomats told AFP.
 
Some member countries of the so-called P5 had been discussing the possibility of a meeting for a few days, they added.
 
Russia was supposedly reticent but all of the five are expected to join, one diplomat said.
 
FROM DESPERATION TO HORROR

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul's airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 people were killed and dozens wounded.

One of the bombers struck people standing knee-deep in a wastewater canal under the sweltering sun, throwing bodies into the fetid water. Those who moments earlier had hoped to get on flights out could be seen carrying the wounded to ambulances in a daze, their own clothes darkened with blood.
 
A second U.S. official said the complex attack was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State group. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz and condemned the attack.
 
Western officials had warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport, but that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31.
 
Russia's Foreign Ministry gave the first official casualty count, but the numbers continued to grow. Emergency, an Italian charity that operates hospitals in Afghanistan, said it had received 60 patients wounded in the airport attack, in addition to 10 who were dead when they arrived.
 
'Surgeons will be working into the night,'' said Marco Puntin, the charity's manager in Afghanistan. The wounded overflowed the triage zone into the physiotherapy area and more beds were being added, he said.
 
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also confirmed the blasts and said there were casualties, including among members of the military, but gave no figure. He said one explosion was near an airport entrance and another was a short distance away by a hotel.
 
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing military operations, said several Marines were killed. It wasn't clear if other U.S. military troops were among the dead. American officials have said that information is still coming in and they are trying to determine exact numbers of casualties.
 
Even as the area was hit, evacuation flights continued to take off from Kabul airport.
 
Adam Khan was waiting nearby when he saw the first explosion outside what's known as the Abbey gate. He said several people appeared to have been killed or wounded, including some who were maimed.
 
The second blast was at or near Baron Hotel, where many people, including Afghans, Britons and Americans, were told to gather in recent days before heading to the airport for evacuation.
 
A former Royal Marine who runs an animal shelter in Afghanistan says he and his staff were caught up in the aftermath of the blast near the airport.
 
'All of a sudden we heard gunshots and our vehicle was targeted, had our driver not turned around he would have been shot in the head by a man with an AK-47,' Paul 'Pen'' Farthing told Britain's Press Association news agency.
 
Farthing is trying to get staff of his Nowzad charity out of Afghanistan, along with the group's rescued animals.
 
He is among thousands trying to flee. Over the last week, the airport has been the scene of some of the most searing images of the chaotic end of America's longest war and the Taliban's takeover, as flight after flight took off carrying those who fear a return to the militants' brutal rule. When the Taliban were last in power, they confined women largely to their home and widely imposed draconian restrictions.
 
Already, some countries have ended their evacuations and begun to withdraw their soldiers and diplomats, signaling the beginning of the end of one of history's largest airlifts. The Taliban have insisted foreign troops must be out by America's self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 _ and the evacuations must end then, too.
 
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden spent much of the morning in the secure White House Situation Room where he was briefed on the explosions and conferred with his national security team and commanders on the ground in Kabul.
 
Overnight, warnings emerged from Western capitals about a threat from IS, which has seen its ranks boosted by the Taliban's freeing of prisoners during its advance through Afghanistan.
 
Shortly before the attack, the acting U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ross Wilson, said the security threat at the Kabul airport overnight was 'clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling.'' But in an interview with ABC News, he would not give details.
 
Late Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy warned citizens at three airport gates to leave immediately due to an unspecified security threat. Australia, Britain and New Zealand also advised their citizens Thursday not to go to the airport.
 
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that any attack was imminent at the airport, where the group's fighters have deployed and occasionally used heavy-handed tactics to control the crowds. After the attack, he appeared to shirk blame, noting the airport is controlled by U.S. troops.
 
Before the blast, the Taliban sprayed a water cannon at those gathered at one airport gate to try to drive the crowd away, as someone launched tear gas canisters elsewhere.
 
Nadia Sadat, a 27-year-old Afghan, carried her 2-year-old daughter with her outside the airport. She and her husband, who had worked with coalition forces, missed a call from a number they believed was the State Department and were trying to get into the airport without any luck. Her husband had pressed ahead in the crowd to try to get them inside.
 
'We have to find a way to evacuate because our lives are in danger,'' Sadat said. 'My husband received several threatening messages from unknown sources. We have no chance except escaping.''
 
Aman Karimi, 50, escorted his daughter and her family to the airport, fearful the Taliban would target her because of her husband's work with NATO.
 
'The Taliban have already begun seeking those who have worked with NATO,' he said. 'They are looking for them house-by-house at night.''
 
The Sunni extremists of IS, with links to the group's more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of brutal attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan's Shiite Muslim minority, including a 2020 assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul in which they killed women and infants.
 
The Taliban have fought against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have wrested back control nearly 20 years after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion. The Americans went in following the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida orchestrated while being sheltered by the group.
 
Amid the warnings and the pending American withdrawal, Canada ended its evacuations, and European nations halted or prepared to stop their own operations.
 
'The reality on the ground is the perimeter of the airport is closed. The Taliban have tightened the noose. It's very, very difficult for anybody to get through at this point,'' Canadian General Wayne Eyre, the country's acting Chief of Defense Staff, said ahead of the attack.
 
Lt. Col. Georges Eiden, Luxembourg's army representative in neighboring Pakistan, said that Friday would mark the official end for U.S. allies. But two Biden administration officials denied that was the case.
 
A third official said that the U.S. worked with its allies to coordinate each country's departure, and some nations asked for more time and were granted it.
 
'Most depart later in the week,'' he said, while adding that some were stopping operations Thursday. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.
 
Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen bluntly warned earlier: 'It is no longer safe to fly in or out of Kabul.''
 
Denmark's last flight has already departed, and Poland and Belgium have also announced the end of their evacuations. The Dutch government said it had been told by the U.S. to leave Thursday.
 
But Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said some planes would continue to fly.
 
'Evacuation operations in Kabul will not be wrapping up in 36 hours. We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,'' he said in a tweet.
 
The Taliban have said they'll allow Afghans to leave via commercial flights after the deadline next week, but it remains unclear which airlines would return to an airport controlled by the militants. Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said talks were underway between his country and the Taliban about allowing Turkish civilian experts to help run the facility.
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