Three children were among ten civilians killed in a US drone strike targeting 'multiple suicide bombers' planning an attack on Kabul's evacuation airport - just hours after Joe Biden warned of the possibility of another jihadist atrocity following this week's attack. Not a single ISIS-K militant was killed ,however,six civilians among three children were killed and many houses badly damaged and a number of people injured
Witnesses said a rocket strike blew up two cars parked outside a residential building near the Hamid Karzai airport to the north of Afghanistan's capital. It is believed the vehicles were going to be used in an 'imminent' attack by ISIS-K militants.
The strike on the vehicles, filled with explosives, is then believed to have caused a secondary blast, killing and wounding several civilians.
An Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said that three children were among the dead. It is not known where the children killed in the incident were at the time of the explosion.
The death toll is expected to rise with Afghan TV presenter Muslim Shirzad reporting that as many as six children were dead and nine people in total, including an interpreter who had worked with US troops, and an Afghan army officer due to get married tomorrow.
The Taliban said it welcomed the drone strike in an apparent sign of uneasy co-operation on security around the airport.
Two unnamed US officials earlier confirmed to Reuters that American forces had launched a successful strike in the capital city targeting suspected ISIS-K militants.
US Navy Captain Bill Urban, a military spokesman, had earlier said the military was investigating whether there were civilian casualties but that 'we have no indications at this time'.
'We are confident we successfully hit the target,' Urban said. 'Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.'
Dina Mohammadi said her extended family were in the building and that several of them had been killed, including children.
Ahmaduddin, a neighbour, said he had collected the bodies of children after the strike, which set off more explosions inside the house.
There were earlier reports of a possible separate incident in which it was claimed a child had been killed in a rocket strike on a house near to the airport. It has since emerged this is the same event.
A security official from the recently deposed government told AFP a house was struck while a source at the Afghan Ministry of Health separately told the BBC the blast was near the airport, with two witnesses informing Reuters a house north of the airport was struck by a rocket.
There was no official confirmation and no terrorist group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. A US official told CBS: 'We are confident we hit the target we were aiming for. Initial reports indicate there were no civilian casualties.'
The official added that the drone strike caused 'significant secondary explosions' indicating the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material in the vehicle.
Mr Biden had previously warned another terror attack on the airport was imminent after an attack at Kabul airport carried out by ISIS-K - an Islamic extremist group operating in the Central Asian country - killed 13 American service personnel and scores of Afghans.
The Pentagon said a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of the so-called Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate early on Saturday in retaliation for the airport bombing, and Mr Biden said the extremists can expect more.
The President and First Lady Jill Biden made an unannounced trip to Delaware on Sunday morning for a ceremony to honour the 13, whose remains were flown back to Dover Air Force Base, where fallen troops' return to American soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the 'dignified transfer.'
In a statement on Saturday, Mr Biden said: 'The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.
'Their bravery and selflessness has enabled more than 117,000 people at risk to reach safety thus far. May God protect our troops and all those standing watch in these dangerous days.'
Some 300 American citizens are still waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan, Secretary of State Andrew Blinken revealed, as he warned that 'this is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission'.
The withdrawal of US forces allowed the Taliban to regain power after an almost 20-year war. The President's allies at home and abroad have openly accused Mr Biden of blindsiding them with his rush to exit by August 31 and slammed his bungled handling of the crisis.
The last British troops stationed in Afghanistan landed in RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire this morning. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Britain's hasty scuttle was 'the culmination of a mission unlike anything we've seen in our lifetimes'.
The British Ambassador to Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow, vowed to continue to help UK nationals and Afghans who remain in the country and still need help.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan thundered that the US has shown in other countries that it is capable of 'suppressing the terrorism threat... without a large permanent presence on the ground. And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward'.
But untold numbers of vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are likely to be left behind. There also are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but have not told the State Department of their plans to leave the country.
