President Joe Biden, whose voice breaks with emotion, vowed Thursday that the United States would hunt those responsible for the two explosions at the airport in Kabul in Afghanistan and said he had asked the Pentagon to come up with a plan to hit them.
President Joe Biden spoke hours after two explosions at Kabul airport in Afghanistan killed at least a dozen American soldiers and dozens of civilians on the worst day for U.S. forces in decades. Hours after the two explosions reported at the airport, the Afghan branch of the Islamic state, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), claimed responsibility for the reported suicide bombing in the Afghan capital. The United States condemned the airport bombings, which killed 60 people and wounded dozens more, as well as the Taliban, which it considers traitors for agreeing to a peace deal, and warned of possible terrorist attacks by extremist groups.
Islamic State said in a statement via the Amaq news agency, citing multiple reports, that a suicide bomber managed to reach a large gathering of U.S. Army translators and collaborators at the Baran camp near Kabul airport and detonate his explosives belt at the gathering, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 100 others, including Taliban fighters, according to Reuters. Two explosions shook the area around the airport on Thursday, killing several people and throwing the evacuation effort into further chaos just days before President Joe Biden’s deadline to leave the United States. At least 28 Taliban members were among those killed in an explosion at an airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban official told Reuters on Friday.
Twelve US soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing on Thursday morning followed by gunfire at a Kabul airport in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which killed at least 60 Afghans, according to the Wall Street Journal. Officials in Afghanistan and the U.S. said that 60 Afghans and at least 13 U.S. soldiers were killed in deadly explosions at the Kabul Airport on Wednesday, August 26. The Thursday attack by Islamic State terrorists included two bombs at one of the airport gates where Afghan civilians were queuing out of the country to take flights, and at a nearby hotel that was a stopover for evacuees, the Pentagon said.
A U.S. military commander vowed on Thursday to hunt down Islamic State leaders after suicide bombings at Kabul Airport and vowed to exact revenge on the group for the deaths of dozens of Afghans and U.S. soldiers. The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for deadly suicide bombings in Kabul on Thursday that killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. soldiers. On Thursday the U.S. vowed to respond to the attacks. Two suicide bombers and a gunman attacked Afghans crowds who came to an airport in Kabul on Thursday – turning a scene of despair into a scene of horror in the final days of the Airlift of those fleeing a Taliban takeover.
The news came just hours after the Defense Department warned of a heightened terrorist threat from Islamic State in Afghanistan known as ISIS-K and Defense Department officials briefed lawmakers on a new threat targeting airports for military and commercial aircraft evacuating people from Kabul, Politico reported. A deadly suicide attack at Kabul airport on Thursday is believed to have detonated two bombs during a US-led evacuation of Taliban-held Afghanistan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Thursday’s terrorist attack on Kabul airport in Afghanistan and expressed his support for the injured and families of those killed.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the group, said the group had informed the Americans of possible terrorist attacks from the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Daesh and ISIS-Khorasan ). On August 24, President Joe Biden warned of the acute and growing threat of terrorist attacks by a local Islamic State in Kabul airport populated by thousands of Afghans desperately trying to escape Taliban rule. Diplomats from NATO countries in Kabul, Afghanistan said that foreign troops planned to evacuate their citizens and embassy staff on August 30, but Taliban said that they had warned them of the impact of large gatherings at the airport, a spokesman for their political office told Al Jazeera TV on Thursday.
ISIS-K and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) claim responsibility for suicide bombings at Kabul International Airport that killed dozens of people, including Afghans planning to leave Afghanistan and at least 13 US soldiers. It was unclear who was behind the attacks, but two US intelligence officials said that they were believed to have been caused by the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State group, ISIS-K. A senior UN official who wished to remain anonymous because of the confidential assessment confirmed that the United States is pursuing “a specific and credible threat” at the airport, where Islamic State members have carried out dozens of attacks in recent years targeting ethnic minorities and other civilians.
While ISIS-K provided no evidence to support the claim, U.S. officials said the group was likely behind Thursday’s deadly bombings at Kabul airport that targeted a frantic Western evacuation operation and killed 13 U.S. soldiers and over 90 Afghans. American military and intelligence analysts have said that the Islamic State threat in Khorasan (ISIS-K), an Afghanistan-linked terror group, includes bomb-laden trucks, suicide bombers infiltrating the crowds at the Hamid Karzai International Airport and mortar attacks on airfields. The bombings were the group’s most consequential actions to date and have prompted US President Joe Biden to promise retaliation.
