Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said that no British military or government employees were hurt or killed at the double bomb-blast by Kabul airport on Thursday afternoon, but that UK forces there were providing medical and security assistance.
At least 13 people were killed at the gates of Kabul airport Thursday when what are reported to be two bombs were detonated, an attack that may have been coordinated with a simultaneous gun attack. Among the dead and wounded are children and U.S. soldiers. The death toll is expected to rise.
The second-largest western presence at the airport after the United States is understood to be British, which has relocated its embassy to the complex as part of the ongoing but soon to finish evacuation process. Despite the concentration of Britons at the airport, however, the UK Ministry of Defence reported no countrymen were casualties in the brutal attack.
The Ministry said: “There have been no reported UK military or UK Government casualties following the incidents in Kabul. UK forces are working closely with our partners to provide security and medical assistance.”
As Breitbart has reported Thursday afternoon, U.S. government sources claim the attack was believed to be the work of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, known by their own account as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). It had been claimed before the attack that the ISIS-K group were planning a suicide bombing at Kabul airport.
While the United States was the first to order an evacuation of the area outside the gates at Kabul Airport on Wednesday night, it was the British government that first elaborated in detail on the nature of the threat then believed to be “imminent” on Thursday morning.
UK Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said, in remarks that appear to have now been borne out, that the thousands of people — predominantly Afghans — congregating at the gates of Kabul airport hoping to be admitted for a flight out of the country should disperse because the Western allies had credible intelligence of an impending attack against the crowds.
Heappey said: “There is a highly credible report of very imminent, very lethal attack on the crowds at Kabul airport, and in all good conscience we couldn’t know that and not communicate it, advising people to stay away.”
Explaining why the crowd was such an appealing target for ISIS-K, Heappey continued: “What IS-KP would love more than anything else is for there to be a large, desperate crowd that they would find easy to operate within. I think what you’d see, if they were successful in mounting their attack, the most gut-wrenching, miserable, abhorrent scenes you could ever possibly imagine, and that’s why we’re being very honest with people this morning about the threat which exists.”
Despite the warnings of a credible threat to the crowds, many chose to remain.