U.S. on alert for more ISIS attacks after 85 killed in Kabul airport
carnage
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[August 27, 2021]
(Reuters) - U.S. forces helping to
evacuate Afghans desperate to flee Taliban rule were on alert for more
attacks on Friday after at least one Islamic State suicide bomber killed
85 people including 13 U.S. soldiers outside the gates of Kabul airport.
Two blasts and gunfire rocked the area outside the airport on
Thursday evening, witnesses said. Video shot by Afghan journalists
showed dozens of bodies strewn around a canal on the edge of the
airport.
A health official and a Taliban official said the toll of Afghans killed
had risen to 72, including 28 Taliban members, although a Taliban
spokesman later denied that any of their fighters guarding the airport
perimeter had been killed.
The U.S. military said 13 of its service members were killed and 18
wounded in what it described as a complex attack.
Islamic State (ISIS), an enemy of the Islamist Taliban as well as the
West, said one of its suicide bombers targeted "translators and
collaborators with the American army".
It was not clear if suicide bombers detonated both blasts or if one was
a planted bomb. It was also not clear if ISIS gunmen were involved in
the attack or if the firing that followed the blasts was Taliban guards
firing into the air to control crowds.
U.S. officials vowed retribution .
General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said U.S.
commanders were watching for more attacks by Islamic State, including
possibly rockets or car bombs targeting the airport.
"We're doing everything we can to be prepared," he said, adding that
some intelligence was being shared with the Taliban and that he believed
"some attacks have been thwarted by them."
U.S. forces are racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by
an Aug. 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden. He says the United
States long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country
in 2001: to root out al Qaeda militants and prevent a repeat of the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that year.
Biden said he had ordered the Pentagon to plan how to strike ISIS-K, the
Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility.
"We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down
and make you pay," Biden said during televised comments from the White
House.
'VERY TOUGH'
Video taken after the attack showed corpses in a waste water canal by
the airport fence, some being fished out and laid in heaps while wailing
civilians searched for loved ones.
"I saw bodies and body parts flying in the air like a tornado blowing
plastic bags," said one Afghan witness. "That little water flowing in
the sewage canal had turned into blood."
Taliban guards blocked access to the airport on Friday, witnesses said.
"We had a flight but the situation is very tough and the roads are
blocked," said one man on an airport approach road.
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A screen grab shows an emergency vehicle as people arrive at a
hospital after an attack at Kabul airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan
August 26, 2021. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the threat
of attacks would increase as Western troops got closer to completing
the huge airlift and leaving.
"The narrative is always going to be, as we leave, certain groups
such as ISIS will want to stake a claim that they have driven out
the U.S. or the UK," Wallace told Sky News. He also vowed action
against ISIS wherever it manifests itself.
ISIS-K was initially confined to areas on the border with Pakistan
but has established a second front in the north of the country. The
Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point says ISIS-K includes
Pakistanis from other militant groups and Uzbek extremists in
addition to Afghans.
Western countries fear that the Taliban, who once sheltered Osama
bin Laden's al Qaeda before it was ousted from power by the U.S.-led
2001 invasion, will allow Afghanistan to turn again into a haven for
militants. The Taliban say they will not let the country be used by
terrorists.
The United States will press on with evacuations despite the threat
of further attacks, McKenzie said, noting that there were still
about 1,000 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan.
The pace of flights accelerated on Friday and American passport
holders had been allowed to enter the airport compound, according to
a Western security official inside the airport.
In the past 12 days, Western countries have airlifted nearly 100,000
people. But they acknowledge that thousands will be left behind when
the last U.S. troops leave at the end of the month.
Worries are growing that the remaining population will face a
humanitarian crisis with the coronavirus spreading and shortages of
food and medical supplies looming.
The World Health Organization said it hoped to establish an air
bridge into the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif with the help
of Pakistani authorities to get medical supplies in.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing by
Grant McCool, Simon Cameron-Moore and Mark Heinrich)
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