Breaking: At Least Twelve American Troops Killed, 15 Injured in Bombings at Kabul Airport, Pentagon Confirms

- August 26, 2021

Twin explosions ripped through the area surrounding Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport Thursday morning, killing at least twelve and injuring at least 15 American troops, and disrupting the weeks-long, last-ditch evacuation effort underway nearby, the Pentagon confirmed.

They were the first Americans killed in Afghanistan since two were shot dead and six were wounded during an operation in February 2020.

At least 60 Afghans were also killed in the blasts, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device Thursday morning just outside the airport’s Abbey Gate, where thousands of Afghans had massed to await evacuation. A second blast occurred shortly thereafter outside the Baron Hotel, a popular waiting point for Afghans and Americans seeking access to the airport in recent days.

Both bombers were affiliated with ISIS.

The exact number of casualties from both blasts remains unclear but according to hospital workers who spoke to the New York Times, the figures may be as high as 40 dead and 120 wounded.

Evacuations were continuing at the airport despite the attacks, according to the Times, though it is unclear whether would-be evacuees were being allowed through the surrounding gates.

The Taliban condemned the attacks in a Thursday morning statement but suggested that the U.S. should have prevented them, saying they occurred in “an area where the U.S. is responsible.”

The airport chaos comes one week after President Biden said that his administration had made clear to the Taliban that any attack on U.S. forces at the airport would “be met with a swift and forceful response.”

The British military warned hours before the blast that an attack on the airport was “imminent” and the State Department issued an alert warning Americans not to travel to the airport due to the threats.

"The credibility of the reporting has reached the stage where we believe there is a very imminent, a highly lethal attack, possibly within Kabul," James Heappey, the U.K.'s armed forces minister, said early Thursday.

A number of U.S. allies subsequently announced that they were halting evacuation flights out of Kabul due to security concerns.

Thousands of Afghan allies and European citizens remain in Kabul, looking for a way out. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that some 1,500 Americans remain in Afghanistan but said that less than 1,000 of them were “actively seeking” to leave.