US drone hit kills ISIS suicide teams targeting Kabul airport
■ Child dies in rocket attack ■ Fresh fears as Taliban kill folk singer
Kabul, Aug. 29: An American drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate on Sunday before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul’s international airport, US officials said.
The strike came just two days before the United States is set to conclude a massive airlift of tens of thousands of Afghan and foreign civilians and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America's longest war with the Taliban back in power.
The US state department released a statement signed by around 100 countries, as well as Nato and the European Union, saying they had received “assurances” from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave the country freely. The Taliban have said they will allow normal travel after the US withdrawal is completed
on Tuesday and they assume control of the airport. At around the same time as the drone strike, the Afghan police said a rocket hit a neighbourhood near the airport, killing a child. Rashid, the Kabul police chief, who goes by one name, confirmed the rocket attack, and video showed smoke rising from
a building around 1 km from the airport.
The Taliban described the drone strike and the rocket attack as separate incidents, but residents of the Afghan capital heard only one large blast.
Two American military officials called the airstrike successful and said the
vehicle carried multiple bombers. US Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a military spokesman, said the strike was carried out in “self-defence”. He said the military was investigating whether there were civilian casualties but that “we have no indications at this time”.
“We are confident we successfully hit the target,” Capt. Urban said. “Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.”
The strike came two days after an ISIS suicide attack outside the airport killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members. The US carried out a drone strike elsewhere in the country on Saturday that it said killed two ISIS members.
US President Joe Biden had vowed to keep up the airstrikes, saying Saturday that another attack was “highly likely”. The state department called the threat “specific” and “credible”.
The Sunni extremists of ISIS, with links to the group’s more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan's Shia Muslim minority, including a 2020 assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul that killed women and newborns.
The Taliban have fought against the ISIS affiliate in the past and have pledged to not allow Afghanistan to become a base for terror attacks.
The Taliban increased security around the airport after Thursday's attack, clearing away the large crowds that had gathered outside the gates hoping to join the airlift.
Britain ended its evacuation flights Saturday, and most US allies concluded theirs earlier in the week. But US military cargo planes continued their runs into the airport on Sunday, ahead of a Tuesday deadline set by President Joe Biden to withdraw all American troops.
In interviews with Sunday talk shows, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US was working with other countries to ensure that the airport functions normally after the US withdrawal and that the Taliban allow people to travel freely.
The Taliban have given similar assurances in recent days, even as they have urged Afghans to remain and help rebuild the war-ravaged country.
The Taliban have pledged amnesty for all Afghans, even those who worked with the US and its allies, and say they want to restore peace and security after decades of war. But many Afghans distrust the group, and there have been reports of summary executions and other human rights abuses in areas under Taliban control.
The shooting of a folk singer in a tense region north of Kabul was bound to contribute to such fears. Fawad Andarabi's family said the Taliban shot him for no reason, just days after they had searched his home and drank tea with him.
“He was innocent, a singer who only was entertaining people,” his son, Jawad, said. “They shot him in the head on the farm.”
The shooting happened in the Andarabi Valley, for which the family is named, 100 km north of Kabul, where the Taliban battled local fighters even after seizing the capital. The Taliban say they have retaken the region, which is near mountainous Panjshir valley, the only one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces not under Taliban control.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his group would investigate the shooting, without providing any further information. The Taliban banned music as unIslamic when they last ruled the country.
Andarabi played the “ghichak”, a bowed lute, and sang traditional songs about his birthplace, his people and the country. A video online showed him at one performance, sitting on a rug with the mountains behind him.