Rockets were fired at Kabul’s airport yesterday where US troops were racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan and evacuate allies under the threat of Islamic State group attacks.
US President Joe Biden has set a deadline of today to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan, drawing to a close his nation’s longest military conflict, which began in retaliation for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The return of the Islamist Taliban movement, which was toppled in 2001, but took back power two weeks ago, triggered an exodus of terrified people aboard US-led evacuation flights.
Photo: AP
Those flights, which have taken more than 122,000 people out of Kabul airport, are to officially end today when the last of the thousands of US troops pull out.
US forces are now focused chiefly on flying themselves and US diplomats out safely.
The Islamic State group, rivals of the Taliban, pose the biggest threat to the withdrawal after carrying out a suicide bombing at the perimeter of the airport late last week that claimed more than 100 lives, including those of 13 US troops.
Photo: AFP
Biden warned that more attacks were highly likely and the US said it carried out an airstrike on Sunday night in Kabul on an Islamic State-prepared car bomb.
That was followed yesterday morning by rockets being fired at the airport.
The White House confirmed that there had been a rocket attack directed at the airport, but said airlift operations there were “uninterrupted.”
“The President ... has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground,” a White House statement said.
A photographer yesterday took images of a destroyed vehicle with a launcher system still visible in the back seat.
A Taliban official at the scene said that he believed five rockets had been fired, and all were destroyed by the airport’s missile defense systems.
A suspected US drone strike had hit the vehicle, about 2km from the airport.
While there were no reports of fatalities or airport damage from the rocket attacks, they caused greater anxiety for locals already traumatized by years of war.
“Since the Americans have taken control of the airport, we can’t sleep properly,” said Abdullah, who lives near the airport and gave only one name. “It is either gun firing, rockets, sirens or sounds of huge planes that disturb us, and now that they are being directly targeted, it can put our lives in danger.”
The US said the airstrike on Sunday night had eliminated another threat from the Islamic State group, but it might have also killed civilians.
“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today,” said Captain Bill Urban, a US Central Command spokesman. “We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life.”
The Islamic State’s Afghanistan-Pakistan chapter has been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks in the two nations, massacring civilians at mosques, public squares, schools and even hospitals.
While both the Islamic State group and the Taliban are Sunni Islamists, they are bitter foes — with each claiming to be the true flagbearers of jihad.
Last week’s suicide bombing at the airport led to the worst single-day death toll for the US military in Afghanistan since 2011.
The threat has forced the US military and the Taliban to cooperate in ensuring security at the airport in a way unthinkable just weeks ago.
The Taliban has already started taking over areas vacated by US forces. It has promised a softer brand of rule compared with their first stint in power, which the US military ended because the group gave sanctuary to al-Qaeda, but many Afghans fear a repeat of the Taliban’s brutal interpretation of Islamic law, as well as violent retribution for working with foreign militaries, Western missions or the previous US-backed government.
Western allies have said that many thousands of at-risk Afghans have not been able to get on the evacuation flights.
The Taliban on Sunday revealed that its supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada was in southern Afghanistan and planning to make a public appearance.
“He is present in Kandahar,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, referring to his movement’s spiritual birthplace.
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