At least 170 people have been killed in the two explosions outside Kabul airport, while 13 US soldiers, and three Britains also dead ,claimed British Media
The US troops helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee Taliban rule are bracing for more attacks. Charles Stratford, reporting from Kabul, said the evacuation has resumed.
“We have seen a number of planes take off. The number of people around the airport has grown dramatically since yesterday,” he said. “We have seen thousands of people scrambling up against a wall there desperate to get on the few remaining planes.”
Thursday’s attack was claimed by ISIL (ISIS) offshoot in Afghanistan, The Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), which said its suicide bombers singled out “translators and collaborators with the American army”.
US President Joe Biden pledged to retaliate against the attack in Kabul, confirming that the bombings were carried out by ISIS-K. “We will hunt you down and make you pay. I will defend our interests in our people with every measure at my command,” he said.
Spain said Friday that it has ended its evacuation operations out of Kabul following the arrival of “the last two Spanish flights” in Dubai, just over a week after it began airlifting its citizens.
“A military A400 plane arrived in Dubai from Kabul at 7:20 am. A second is due to land at 8:20 am. With these two flights, the Spanish evacuation of its Afghan collaborators and their families has been completed,” the government said in a statement.
The United Kingdom says that it plans to complete its evacuations out of Afghanistan “in a matter of hours”.
“We will process those people that we have brought with us, the 1,000 people approximately inside the airfield now,” British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News. “And we will seek a way to continue to find a few people in the crowd, where we can, but overall the main processing has now closed and we have a matter of hours.”
Nearly 14,000 British citizens and Afghans had been rescued as part of the UK evacuations since mid-August, Wallace said, but added: “The sad fact is not every single one will get out.”
Evacuation flights from Afghanistan have resumed with new urgency a day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover.
The US says further attempted attacks are expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America’s longest war.
Kabul residents said several flights took off Friday morning.
At least 13 United States soldiers are among the 110 people killed in the explosions at Kabul airport, claimed by ISIL (ISIS) affiliate, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS-K).
It was the worst single-day loss for American troops in Afghanistan since the August 2011 attack on a Chinook helicopter that killed 30 service members.