ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday condemned suicide bombings carried out by the Daesh group that have so far killed over 100 people, including 13 US 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.
Daesh, an enemy of the Taliban as well as the West, said one of its suicide bombers had targeted “translators and collaborators with the American army.”
In an emotional speech Thursday night, President Joe Biden promised to avenge the deaths of US service members, telling the militants “we will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Thousands of Afghans have been camped at Kabul airport in the hopes of fleeing since the August 15 takeover of the country by the Taliban. But despite intense pressure to extend the August 31 deadline for a complete withdrawal and his vow to hunt down those responsible, Biden cited the threat of more attacks as a reason to stick to his plan.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the heinous terrorist attack at the Kabul airport, which reportedly resulted in the loss of several precious lives, including children,” Pakistan’s foreign office in a statement said. “Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations … We convey our sympathies and condolences to the bereaved families and pray for the early recovery of those injured.”
The Taliban captured Kabul and seized power in Afghanistan two decades after the group was ousted in a US-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, orchestrated by al-Qaida militants being harbored in the country. Their return to power has scared many Afghans, who fear they will reimpose the kind of repressive rule they practiced when they were last in control. Thousands have rushed to flee the country ahead of the American withdrawal as a result.
The US said more than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated from Kabul, but as many as 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Afghans are struggling to leave in one of history’s largest airlifts.
General Frank McKenzie, the US Central Command chief overseeing the evacuation, said about 5,000 people awaited flights at the airfield on Thursday, the AP reported. More continued to arrive Friday.
Video taken in the aftermath of Thursday's attacks showed corpses in a wastewater 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,” one Afghan witness told Reuters. “That little water flowing in the sewage canal had turned into blood.”
The attacks led Jamshad to head to the airport in the morning with his wife and three small children, clutching an invitation to a Western country he didn’t want to name. This was his first attempt to leave.
"After the explosion I decided I would try because I am afraid now there will be more attacks, and I think now I have to leave,” Jamshad, who like many Afghans uses only one name, told AP.
Others acknowledged that going to the airport was risky — but said they have few choices.
“Believe me, I think that an explosion will happen any second or minute, God is my witness, but we have lots of challenges in our lives, that is why we take the risk to come here and we overcome fear,” said Ahmadullah Herawi, also seeking to flee.
In the wake of the attacks, McKenzie warned that more were possible, and American commanders were working with the Taliban to prevent them. Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted Friday that “we have renewed information about a high terrorist threat to the area around Kabul Airport," but offered no details.
A US Central Command spokesperson said 18 soldiers wounded in the attack were “in the process of being aeromedically evacuated from Afghanistan on specially equipped C-17s with embarked surgical units.”
A Taliban official lamented the number of Taliban members killed in the attack.
“We have lost more people than the Americans in the airport blast,” a Taliban official said, adding that the Taliban was “not responsible for the chaotic evacuation plan prepared by foreign nations.”
