Afghan media published harrowing images on Thursday of the immediate aftermath of at least one bombing at Kabul’s international airport, showing bloodied victims carried to the closest airport on wheelbarrows and panicked civilians swarming the capital’s Emergency Hospital.
Multiple media outlets confirmed on Wednesday and Thursday the growing presence of impromptu vendors this week in and around Kabul’s international airport, selling basics like food and water for outrageous prices and refusing to accept payment not in U.S. dollars.
Twin suicide bombings outside Hamid Karzai International Airport and the Baron Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed at least 90 people, including 13 U.S. service members, and wounded another 150 people on Thursday, according to reports. Warning: Graphic photos and video inside.
U.S. officials on Wednesday evening warned of an imminent terrorist threat at the Kabul airport and instructed American citizens to leave several of the crowded airport gates immediately. The Biden administration and Taliban spokesmen both claimed the threat came not from the Taliban or its terrorist allies, but from the Islamic State, which has been fighting the Taliban for turf in Afghanistan for several years.
The UK and U.S. have warned of credible intelligence of an “imminent” attack against Kabul airport, where thousands of people continue to crowd.
VOA and Radio Azadi journalists are still trapped in Afghanistan as the August 31 withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country draws closer.
The Turkish National Defense Ministry said on Wednesday it has begun withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan, where they have been stationed since 2002 under authorization from the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Videos out of Kabul show Afghans trudging through a ditch filled knee-deep with sewage on Wednesday to reach the capital’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, waving their travel papers and signs begging for help at the journalists filming their plight.
Some Afghans at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan are using American passports that do not belong to them in an attempt to be approved for resettlement in the United States, NBC News reports.
Video footage of a U.S. Marine providing water for Afghan children outside Kabul airport — which has circulated on social media in recent days — is “too histrionic,” China’s state-run Global Times complained on Monday.
The Taliban have begun halting U.S. citizens trying to pass through the gates of Kabul’s main airport for evacuation following an announcement from Afghanistan’s new rulers that routes to the airport are now only open to foreigners.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Tuesday announced the jihadist organization would not allow Afghan nationals to enter Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
Taliban rival group the Islamic State may launch an attack, using the chaos to strike and increase their notoriety, experts have warned.
The presence of U.S. military personnel at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport is “the main cause behind the ongoing misery” at the airport, the Taliban claimed in statements published by Afghanistan’s Khaama Press on Monday.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said White House officials are “trying to find levity and joking around” Americans remain imperiled in Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden in an address to the nation on Sunday said, “terrorists may seek to exploit” the United States’ failed withdrawal from Afghanistan as thousands of fearful Afghans and Americans flood the Kabul airport in an effort to escape Taliban violence.
The Kabul airport gates are reportedly closed Saturday, as additional details indicate the Taliban is confiscating U.S. passports.
