Team News Riveting
Two explosions rocked outside the Kabul airport on Thursday evening, killing 13 people and injuring 15 others.
Taliban sources told a news agency that the US moved its people inside the airport gates minutes before the blast. Pentagon claimed that US and civilian casualties in the blast but failed to clarify the number. It was not clear whether any US citizen was killed in the blasts that reportedly claimed children also.
The US officials have confirmed only serious injuries to its citizens. Probably, the last minutes move could have saved a major casualty on the last leg of evacuation necessitated as large number of people are desperate to flee Afghanistan after Taliban took over following America’s self-imposed deadline of August 31 to withdraw the foreign troops.
People, specially those who worked with the Afghan government and US-led forces, had thronged the Kabul airport, now under the command of US security forces.
However, on Thursday evening, evacuation efforts turned into more turmoil days before President Joe Biden’s deadline. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the first attack occurred outside the Abbey Gate in the Kabul airport. The second attack was “at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate.” He added it was a “complex attack” with multiple US and civilian causalities.
Western nations had warned earlier in the day of a possible attack at the airport in the waning days of a massive airlift. Suspicion for any attack targeting the crowds would likely fall on the Islamic State group and not the Taliban, who have been deployed at the airport’s gates trying to control the mass of people.
According to an eye witness, the blast occurred within a crowd of desperate Afghans trying to leave the country hinting the possibility of suicide bombers blowing themselves up.
