BY AGENCY REPORTER
The United States Defense Department official has said that a U.S. military drone strike blew up a vehicle laden with explosives in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday.
The New York Times reports that the strike came during a precarious final chapter of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, with just two days remaining before President Biden’s Tuesday deadline to complete the American withdrawal from the country.
The strike thwarted an imminent threat to Hamid Karzai International Airport from the Islamic State Khorasan, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said. “Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” the spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban, said.
Captain Urban said the military was trying to determine whether the strike had caused civilian casualties. A senior military official said it was confident no civilians were in the targeted vehicle but acknowledged that the secondary explosions may have caused damage.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said that civilians had suffered casualties in the U.S. strike and that a house had been hit. “We are investigating the reason for the airstrike and the exact number of casualties,” he said.
Earlier Sunday, the United States Embassy in Kabul had said that there was a “specific, credible threat” to the airport area, where a suicide bombing on Thursday killed as many as 170 civilians and 13 members of the American military. The Islamic State Khorasan claimed responsibility for the attack. Mr Biden had warned on Saturday that another attack was “highly likely” in the coming hours.
With Mr Biden’s Tuesday deadline looming, the military was shifting its focus from vetting and airlifting Afghan and American civilians to bringing its own personnel home. And the impending American exit created anguishing questions about who would be left behind.
American University of Afghanistan students boarded buses bound for the Kabul airport in the morning but were turned away, according to people familiar with efforts to evacuate them.
That left hundreds of university students, faculty and staff members facing the choice of fleeing overland or remaining in the country to face possible persecution by the Taliban. University students and faculty were among the most outspoken advocates in Afghanistan for human rights, women’s rights, free expression and democracy.
As many as 250 Americans remain in Afghanistan who are seeking to leave the country, while some 280 Americans are undecided about leaving or intend to stay, the State Department said Sunday afternoon.
For Americans who choose to stay past Tuesday, the administration plans to ensure there is a “mechanism to get them out of the country should they choose in the future to come home,” Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security adviser, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The Taliban have made commitments to us in that regard,” he said. “We intend to hold them to those commitments, and we have the leverage to hold them to those commitments.”
The United States is unlikely to keep diplomats in Afghanistan after Tuesday’s deadline for the military to withdraw, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday.
The American troop departures will mark the tumultuous end to a 20-year war that has left the country awash in grief and desperation, with many Afghans fearing for their lives under Taliban rule and struggling to support their families amid cash shortages and rising food prices. At least some banks had opened in Kabul on Sunday, and long lines had formed outside their doors.
The attack at the airport on Thursday, which happened as U.S. troops were screening people hoping to enter, once again underscored the human toll of the war — both for Afghans, the overwhelming majority of the victims, and for the American families who lost loved ones sent to fight it.
The 13 American military personnel who were killed came from across the country, from California to Wyoming to Tennessee, and had an average age of just over 22. Eleven were Marines, one was a Navy medic and another was in the Army.
Mr Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, travelled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday to witness the transfer of their remains.
Jim Huylebroek contributed reporting.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1800-273-TALK (8255), text “help” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
