A suicide bombing at the entrance to Kabul Airport has killed dozens of people, including Afghan civilians and US military personnel. The airport, which was one of the last areas of the country that was held by NATO allied troops, was being used as an exit point for thousands of Afghans attempting to flee the country after the Taliban takeover.
At least 60 people, according to the latest estimates, were killed in a bomb blast at the gate of Kabul Airport on the afternoon of Thursday, August 26th. According to United States officials, at least 12 service members of the US Military along with dozens of Afghan civilians were killed in the blast. The blasts came from at least two suicide bombers outside of the airport, which was being used as a staging area for the evacuation of thousands of Afghan civilians attempting to flee the country. The Taliban forces which have been in control of Kabul, and the country as a whole, were tentatively allowing evacuation flights to continue from the airport. Evacuation flights are being carried out by many European and Western nations, in an attempt to free both their own citizens, as well as asylum seekers whose lives are in imminent danger in Afghanistan. Before the attacks today, the United States issued a statement saying that American evacuation flights were “basically over”, even going so far as to seal the gates of the airport, thus not allowing any more Afghans to search for available evacuation flights. The Taliban had given Western countries a hard deadline of August 31st, before they would take over the Kabul Airport, the last part of the city not in control of the internationally recognized terrorist group.
Videos of the event which were posted online showed dozens of mutilated and bloodsoaked corpses, according to Reuters. According to the United States, the attack was a “complex attack” of two suicide bombers, one of whom walked as close as five meters to US military personnel. The United States Government is officially pinning the blame on ISIS and their Afghan satellite, ISIS-Khorasan. A few hours after the attack, ISIS officially took credit for the attack, and warned that more attacks were already planned for the Afghan capital. ISIS is a major rival of the Taliban, and the Taliban today described the attacks as the work of “evil circles” who would be suppressed once the presence of foreign troops ended. Many witnesses of the attack described seeing dozens of wounded people and the noise of at least two explosions, as well as gunfire after the attacks. It is one of the deadliest events of the entire war for the United States military, despite happening only five days before the official end of the United States military mission in Afghanistan.
This article will be updated if more information becomes available.