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At least 12 US service members have been killed and another 15 injured in two suicide bombing attacks outside Kabul airport Thursday, according to US officials.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed earlier that US troops had been killed but did not disclose the number.
“A number of US service members were killed in today’s complex attack at Kabul airport. A number of others are being treated for wounds. We also know that a number of Afghans fell victim to this heinous attack,” he said.
Initial estimates vary, but an Afghan health official told the New York Times that at least 40 people had been killed and 120 injured.
An ISIS fighter wearing a suicide vest and a car bomber are believed to have carried out the deadly attacks, according to US officials who strongly believe the brutal terror group is behind the carnage.
One explosion occurred when the ISIS bomber detonated their vest outside Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate, the airfield’s main entrance — where a crowd of Afghans were standing in a canal waiting to try to get on evacuation flights, Sky News reported.
US troops exchanged gunfire soon after that explosion, sources told Politico.
The second blast occurred outside the nearby Baron Hotel in what the Pentagon is describing as a “complex attack.” The hotel is where many Americans and British evacuees had been told to gather in recent days before heading to the airport.
The Taliban condemned the attack as an act of terrorism — but blamed it on the presence of US forces.
“As soon as the airport situation is figured out and the foreign forces leave, we will not have such attacks anymore. It is because of the presence of foreign forces that such attacks take place,” a Taliban official told a Turkish TV channel.
Meanwhile, the State Department canceled its daily press briefing Thursday amid the chaos. It is not clear when or if the Pentagon or White House will address the ongoing situation.
President Biden has remained silent but is monitoring the situation, according to a White House official.
However, Biden tore up his schedule in the wake of the deadly attacks, canceling his first in-person meeting with Israel’s new prime minister and a video conference with governors on incoming Afghan refugees.
The president was in a security meeting about the Afghanistan situation when the first attack occurred.
Harrowing footage from the scene shows more than a dozen bodies strewn like debris in the canal after the airport gate blast.
Images of blood-soaked people being rushed from the scene in wheelbarrows have also emerged.
An Afghan man who was near the first explosion said some people appeared to be missing body parts after the blast. Another man identified as Karl, who said he was a translator for the US Marines, told Fox News he was outside waiting in line for one of the evacuation flights when the bomb went off.
“There was an explosion that happened inside the crowd — a lot of people got hurt,” he said. “I got a baby girl — she was 5 years old — she died right in my hands.”
He said American troops were outside the airport when the explosion occurred.
“It happened by a canal and the Americans were on the other side of the canal … they were checking people’s passports and stuff and those people that have visas, they were taking them by the airport. That’s why they were outside.”
The US and its allies have been warning of a possible terror attack by ISIS-K — the Afghan arm of ISIS — as the Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw from the country approaches.
Just hours before the explosion, the US Embassy in Kabul urged Americans to stay away from the airport because of “security threats outside the gates.”
A State Department security alert also warned those at three specific airport gates to “leave immediately.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said up to 1,500 US citizens remain stranded in Afghanistan.
