Suicide bombers struck the crowded gates of Kabul airport with at least two explosions yesterday, causing a bloodbath among civilians and US troops, and bringing a catastrophic halt to the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee. Another large explosion was heard in Kabul in the wee hours of today, but which the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed was the US military destroying ammunition.
Two US officials put the US death toll at 12 service members killed, making it one of the deadliest incidents for American troops of the entire 20-year war.
There was no complete toll of Afghan civilians but video images uploaded by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies of people killed in packed crowds outside the airport.
A watery ditch by the airport fence was filled with bloodsoaked corpses, some being fished out and laid in heaps on the canal side while wailing civilians searched for loved ones.
Several Western countries said the airlift of civilians was now effectively over, with the United States having sealed the gates of the airport leaving no way out for tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the West through two decades of war.
A Taliban official said at least 13 people including children had been killed in the attack and 52 were wounded, though it was clear from video footage that those figures were far from complete. One surgical hospital run by an Italian charity said it alone was treating more than 60 wounded.
The explosions took place amid the crowds outside the airport who have been massing for days in hope of escaping in an airlift which the United States says will end by Tuesday, following the swift capture of the country by the Taliban. To Page 9
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide attack at the airport 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 metres (16 feet)” of US forces before detonating his explosives belt, the jihadist group’s propaganda arm Amaq said, according to a translation by SITE.
The statement only appeared to mention one bomber and one blast.
At least two bombs are believed to have detonated during yesterday’s attack at the airport.
A witness who gave his name as Jamshed said he went to the airport in the hope of getting a visa for the United States.
“There was a very strong and powerful suicide attack, in the middle of the people. Many were killed, including Americans,” he said.
General Kenneth McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told reporters before the claim of responsibility that once the United States confirmed who was behind the attack “we will go after them”.
He also said that the threat of more attacks, including a vehicle bomb, remained “imminent”, and warned that the group would also like to attack one of the dozens of aircraft flying in and out of the airport as the evacuation continues.
Zubair, a 24 year-old civil engineer who had been trying for a nearly week to get inside the airport with a cousin who had papers authorising him to travel to the United States, said he was 50m from the first of two suicide bombers who detonated explosives at the gate.
“Men, women and children were screaming. I saw many injured people – men, women and children – being loaded into private vehicles and taken toward the hospitals,” he said.
After the explosions there was gunfire.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Twitter: “We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US and civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate.”
Taliban official Suhail Shaheen said there were two explosions in a crowded area managed by US forces. “We strongly condemn this gruesome incident and will take every step to bring the culprits to justice.”
The Taliban did not identify the attackers, but a spokesman described it as the work of “evil circles” who would be suppressed once the foreign troops leave.
Washington and its allies had been urging civilians to stay away from the airport yesterday, citing the threat of an Islamic State suicide attack.
In the past 12 days, Western countries have evacuated nearly 100,000 people, mostly Afghans who helped them.
However, they say many thousands more will be left behind following US President Joe Biden’s order to pull out all troops by August 31.
The last few days of the airlift will mostly be used to withdraw the remaining troops.
Canada and some European countries have already announced the end of their airlifts, while publicly lamenting Biden’s abrupt pullout.
“The doors at the airport are now closed and it is no longer possible to get people in,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said yesterday.
“We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone,” the acting chief of Canada’s defence staff, General Wayne Eyre, told reporters.
Biden ordered all troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the month to comply with a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban negotiated by his predecessor Donald Trump.
He spurned calls this week from European allies for more time. The abrupt collapse of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan caught US officials by surprise and risks reversing gains, especially in the rights of women and girls, millions of whom have been going to school and work, once forbidden under the Taliban.
Biden has defended the decision to leave, saying that US forces could not stay indefinitely.
Medical and hospital staff bring an injured man on a stretcher for treatment after the blasts. (AFP)
