U.S. bombs ISIS after deadly airport blast
KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. military struck back at the Islamic State on Saturday, bombing an ISIS member in Afghanistan less than 48 hours after a suicide bombing claimed by the group killed as many as 169 Afghans and 13 American service members at the capital’s airport.
U.S. Central Command said a drone strike was conducted against an ISIS member in Nangahar believed to be involved in planning attacks against American forces in Kabul. The strike killed one person and isn’t believed to have killed any civilians, spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said.
It wasn’t clear if the person killed was involved in the Thursday suicide blast outside the gates of the Kabul airport, where crowds of Afghans desperately were trying to get in as part of the ongoing evacuation from the country after the Taliban’s rapid takeover.
But in taking out a member of ISIS, the airstrike fulfilled President Joe Biden’s vow to the nation Thursday that the perpetrators of the attack wouldn’t be able to hide.
“We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.
Pentagon leaders said Friday that they were prepared for whatever retaliatory action the
president ordered.
“We have options there right now,” said Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
Meanwhile, American forces at the airport pressed ahead with the evacuation despite threats of another attack.
The White House and the Pentagon warned that there could be more bloodshed ahead of Biden’s fast-approaching deadline Tuesday to end the airlift and withdraw U.S. forces. The next few days “will be our most dangerous period to date” in the evacuation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Thursday’s bombing marked one of the most lethal attacks the country has seen. It was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2011.
As the call to prayer echoed Friday through Kabul along with the roar of departing planes, the anxious crowds thronging the airport in hope of escaping Taliban rule appeared as large as ever, despite the scenes of victims lying closely packed together in the aftermath of the bombing.
Around the world, newly arriving Afghan evacuees, many clutching babies and bare handfuls of belongings in plastic bags, stepped off evacuation flights in the U.S., Albania, Belgium and elsewhere. In Kabul on Friday, Afghan families looked for loved ones among bodies of bombing victims who died while pleading for a seat on the U.S.-run airlifts. The bodies were placed along a hospital sidewalk for identification.
Afghans, U.S. citizens and other foreigners knew the window was closing to get out.
Jamshad went to the airport Friday with his wife and three small children. He clutched an invitation to a Western country he didn’t want to identify.
“After the explosion, I decided I would try. Because I am afraid now there will be more attacks, and I think now I have to leave,” said Jamshad, who like many Afghans uses only one name.
The Pentagon said Friday that there was just one suicide bomber — at the airport gate — not two, as U.S. officials initially said. A U.S. official said the bomber carried a heavier-than-usual load of about 25 pounds of explosives, loaded with shrapnel.
Officials said the bomber waited until the last possible moment to detonate his vest, walking up to a group of U.S. service members who were frisking people waiting to get into the airport.
He set off the bomb just as he was about to be searched.
The victims included a news agency founder and several impoverished Afghans who’d gone to the airport in hopes of a better life.
Details on the American dead — 11 Marines, a Navy sailor and an Army soldier — also began to emerge. One of the Marines was identified as 20-year-old Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, from the Laredo-area town of Rio Bravo.
Another fallen Marine, Lance Cpl. Kareem Mae’lee Grant Nikoui of Norco, Calif., sent a video to a family friend in the United States just hours before he was killed, showing himself smiling and greeting Afghan children.
“Want to take a video together, buddy?” Nikoui asked young boy, leaning in to be in the picture with him. “All right, we’re heroes now, man.”
British officials said two citizens and the child of another Briton also were among those killed.
On the morning after the attack, the Taliban used a pickup full of fighters and three captured Humvees to set up a barrier 1,600 feet from the airport, holding the crowds farther back from the U.S. troops at the gates than before.
U.S. military officials said some gates were closed and that other security measures were put in place. They said there were tighter restrictions at Taliban checkpoints and fewer people around the gates. The military said it also had asked the Taliban to close certain roads because of the possibility of suicide bombers in vehicles.
The Pentagon noted that the airport already had defenses against rocket attacks and said the U.S. would keep up manned and unmanned flights over the airport for surveillance and protection, including the use of AC-130 gunships.
U.S. officials said evacuees with proper credentials still were being allowed through the gates. Inside, about 5,400 evacuees awaited flights.
The U.N. Security Council called the targeting of fleeing civilians and those trying to help them “especially abhorrent.”
More than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated through the Kabul airport, according to the U.S., but thousands more are struggling to leave in one of history’s biggest airlifts.
The White House said Friday afternoon that U.S. military aircraft had flown out 2,100 evacuees in the previous 24 hours. Another 2,100 people left on other coalition flights.
The number was a fraction of the 12,700 people carried out by U.S. military aircraft one day early in the week, when the now 2week-old airlift not only met but exceeded intended capacity for a couple days.
More European allies and other nations were ending their airlifts Friday, in part to give the U.S. time to wrap up its own operations.