The attack perpetrated by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) at Kabul airport this Thursday in Afghanistan left at least 85 dead, including 13 American soldiers, and more than 160 wounded, according to a new report provided on Friday by two officials of the former government overthrown in mid-August by the Taliban.
The attack, carried out Thursday at dusk, sowed chaos and desolation among the thousands of Afghans massed there in the hope of getting on one of the planes chartered by the West.
First murderous attack
Videos posted on social networks showed dozens of victims, dead or injured, lying in the brackish water of a sewer canal, surrounded by overwhelmed and helpless rescuers. Men, women and children were running in all directions to get away from the site of the explosions. “There are a lot of women and children among the victims. Most people are shocked, traumatized, ”a former government official said on Friday. The situation seemed calm Friday morning in Kabul, especially around the airport where the Taliban had reinforced their checkpoints and where the crowd seemed to have disappeared in places.
The double blast also killed at least thirteen US soldiers and injured eighteen others, according to the Pentagon, making it the deadliest attack on the US military in Afghanistan since 2011. This first deadly attack since The Taliban’s return to power on August 15 comes a few days before the departure of American troops from the country, scheduled for August 31 after twenty years of fruitless war against the Islamists.
More than 100,000 people evacuated
According to Washington, which expects ISIS attacks “to continue”, the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers from the jihadist group, followed by a shootout. Under the name IS-K (Islamic State Khorasan Province), IS has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest attacks in Afghanistan in recent years, killing hundreds, especially among Shia Muslims. Even though they are two radical Sunni groups, ISIS and the Taliban are in competition and are animated by a stubborn and reciprocal hatred.
The West condemned the attack, stressing that it should not prevent the continuation of the mass evacuations, which have so far made it possible to leave 100,100 people, according to the latest data released Thursday evening by the White House. The new Taliban regime, through its spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, “strongly condemned” these “bombings”, while stressing that they had taken place in an area under the responsibility of the American army.
“Death to America, its evacuation and its visas”
According to military sources, one of the explosions occurred near Abbey Gate, one of the three access points to the airport. “It was a huge explosion, in the middle of the crowd which was waiting in front of one of the doors of the airport”, where people enter who are being evacuated by the Westerners, declared a witness of the scene, Milad, adding to have seen “Bodies and human fragments projected” around.
In the confusion, he says he lost the documents with which he hoped to board a flight with his wife and three children. “I never want to go (to the airport) again. Death to America, its evacuation and its visas, ”he said. The injured “could not speak, many were terrified, their eyes lost in the vague, their blank gaze”, testified on Twitter the medical coordinator of the hospital managed by the Italian NGO Emergency, Alberto Zanin.