Kabul airport may see 'imminent attack,' perhaps in 'hours,' British official warns

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Dom Calicchio | Fox News


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The possibility of an "imminent attack," perhaps within "hours," loomed over Kabul’s airport on Thursday, according to a British official.

James Heappey, Britain’s armed forces minister, told the BBC on Thursday there was "very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack," possibly targeting the airport in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of people have been gathering over the past two weeks in hopes of leaving the country.

A senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the British report, saying the threat by ISIS-K or another affiliate of a vehicle bomb or suicide bomber has been measured as "more likely than unlikely" for over the last 24 hours.

Other warnings in Western capitals addressed possible threats from the Afghanistan affiliate of the Islamic State group, The Associated Press reported.

The latest reports followed a U.S. Embassy warning in Afghanistan that U.S. citizens who might be gathered at specific gates of the Kabul airport should "leave immediately."

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, however, dismissed the reports of possible attacks, calling them "not correct." But he did not elaborate, the AP reported.

One Taliban official who spoke to Reuters said its own guards were "risking their lives" at the airport because of a possible attack by Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), which the Taliban regards as an enemy.

In Belgium, Prime Minister Alexander De Cross said his country had received a warning from the U.S. that a possible attack involving an explosive amid the airport crowds in Kabul might be in the works.

"We received information at the military level from the United States, but also from other countries, that there were indications that there was a threat of suicide attacks on the mass of people," De Cross said, talking about the threat around Kabul airport.

Other countries announced they were either ending or had already ended their evacuation operations from the Kabul airport.

Poland, Belgium and Denmark all said their final flights had departed, while France said it would conduct no more evacuations after Friday evening, citing the upcoming withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"From tomorrow evening onwards, we are not able to evacuate people from the Kabul airport," French Prime Minister Jean Castex told RTL Radio in France.

Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen bluntly warned: "It is no longer safe to fly in or out of Kabul." Denmark’s last flight carried 90 people plus soldiers and diplomats.

The warnings from European allies came as the U.S. struggled to evacuate thousands from the country following the Taliban takeover enabled by the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

[DemonGeminiX]

:-s

That was several hours ago.

[Muddy]

BREAKING NEWS

Large explosion at Abbey gate at the Kabul airport - report

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Tim Pearce - The Daily Wire


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Four Americans, all U.S. Marines, were killed in Kabul Thursday after two bombings rocked the city near Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday: “The U.S. ambassador in Kabul has told staff there that four U.S. Marines were killed in an explosion at the city’s airport and three wounded, a U.S. official with knowledge of the briefing said.”

Two terror bombings rocked areas just outside of the airport on Thursday as throngs of people flocked to the airport seeking evacuation from the largely Taliban-controlled country. One reported ISIS suicide bomber hit one of the airport’s main gates, the Abbey Gate. Another explosion struck just outside of Kabul’s Baron Hotel, which has been a gathering place for Americans waiting to be evacuated from the country.

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The total number of injuries remains unclear, though early reports indicate over a dozen dead and dozens injured. The attacks took place hours after multiple NATO countries suspended evacuation operations citing the possibility of a terror attack. Thousands of people seeking extraction have crowded outside the perimeter of the airport in recent weeks. Taliban checkpoints have blocked most from getting through.

According to a source speaking to Fox News, hundreds of ISIS-K fighters are in the “vicinity” of the airport and attacks are expected to continue. For days, ISIS fighters have been reported in the area triggering security alerts from NATO nations. As The Daily Wire reports:


Islamic State-affiliated terrorists have been reported to be in the area, setting off security alerts among U.S. officials. On Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan sent out an alert to Americans still in the country, warning them to stay away from the airport.

“Because of security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so,” the alert said.

Earlier this week, Biden rebuffed calls from U.S. allies and declined to extend an August 31 deadline to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Numerous U.S. and international lawmakers had pushed Biden to reconsider his self-imposed deadline, citing the need to evacuate hundreds more Americans and potentially hundreds of thousands more Afghan visa holders.

“The sooner we can finish, the better,” Biden said during an address as the White House. “Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that [Islamic State-affiliated] ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport, attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians.”

“Thus far, the Taliban have been taking steps to work with us so we can get our people out,” he said. “But it’s a tenuous situation. We’ve already had some gunfighting break out. We run a serious risk of it breaking down, as time goes on.”

The State Department reported Wednesday that roughly 1,500 Americans are believed to be in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the department was in contact with about 500 of those and working on evacuating them. Many times more Afghans who worked with the U.S. military are believed to be in Afghanistan with little hope of evacuating before the August 31 deadline. Estimates indicate at least 150,000 Afghans and their families eligible for visas out of the country remain in Afghanistan.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

At least 10 U.S. Marines and soldiers have been killed in the suicide bombing outside Kabul airport Thursday, U.S. officials tell Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson.

[Hugh_Janus]

I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner tbh

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By SAYED ZIARMAL HASHEMI, RAHIM FAIEZ, LOLITA C. BALDOR and JOSEPH KRAUSS - Associated Press


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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 12 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

U.S. officials said 11 Marines and one Navy medic were among those who died. They said another 12 service members were wounded and warned the toll could grow. More than 140 Afghans were wounded, an Afghan official said.

One of the bombers struck people standing knee-deep in a wastewater canal under the sweltering sun, throwing bodies into the fetid water. Those who moments earlier had hoped to get on flights out could be seen carrying the wounded to ambulances in a daze, their own clothes darkened with blood.

A U.S. official said the complex attack was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State group. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz and condemned the attack.

Western officials had warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport, but that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31.

Emergency, an Italian charity that operates hospitals in Afghanistan, said it had received at least 60 patients wounded in the airport attack, in addition to 10 who were dead when they arrived.

“Surgeons will be working into the night,” said Marco Puntin, the charity’s manager in Afghanistan. The wounded overflowed the triage zone into the physiotherapy area and more beds were being added, he said.

The Afghan official who confirmed the overall Afghan toll spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said one explosion was near an airport entrance and another was a short distance away by a hotel.

Even as the area was hit, evacuation flights continued to take off from Kabul airport.

Adam Khan was waiting nearby when he saw the first explosion outside what’s known as the Abbey gate. He said several people appeared to have been killed or wounded, including some who were maimed.

The second blast was at or near Baron Hotel, where many people, including Afghans, Britons and Americans, were told to gather in recent days before heading to the airport for evacuation.

A former Royal Marine who runs an animal shelter in Afghanistan says he and his staff were caught up in the aftermath of the blast near the airport.

“All of a sudden we heard gunshots and our vehicle was targeted, had our driver not turned around he would have been shot in the head by a man with an AK-47,” Paul “Pen” Farthing told Britain’s Press Association news agency.

Farthing is trying to get staff of his Nowzad charity out of Afghanistan, along with the group’s rescued animals.

He is among thousands trying to flee. Over the last week, the airport has been the scene of some of the most searing images of the chaotic end of America’s longest war and the Taliban’s takeover, as flight after flight took off carrying those who fear a return to the militants’ brutal rule. When the Taliban were last in power, they confined women largely to their home and widely imposed draconian restrictions.

Already, some countries have ended their evacuations and begun to withdraw their soldiers and diplomats, signaling the beginning of the end of one of history’s largest airlifts. The Taliban have insisted foreign troops must be out by America’s self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 — and the evacuations must end then, too.

In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden spent much of the morning in the secure White House Situation Room where he was briefed on the explosions and conferred with his national security team and commanders on the ground in Kabul.

Overnight, warnings emerged from Western capitals about a threat from IS, which has seen its ranks boosted by the Taliban’s freeing of prisoners during its advance through Afghanistan.

Shortly before the attack, the acting U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ross Wilson, said the security threat at the Kabul airport overnight was “clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling.” But in an interview with ABC News, he would not give details.

Late Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy warned citizens at three airport gates to leave immediately due to an unspecified security threat. Australia, Britain and New Zealand also advised their citizens Thursday not to go to the airport.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that any attack was imminent at the airport, where the group’s fighters have deployed and occasionally used heavy-handed tactics to control the crowds. After the attack, he appeared to shirk blame, noting the airport is controlled by U.S. troops.

Before the blast, the Taliban sprayed a water cannon at those gathered at one airport gate to try to drive the crowd away, as someone launched tear gas canisters elsewhere.

Nadia Sadat, a 27-year-old Afghan, carried her 2-year-old daughter with her outside the airport. She and her husband, who had worked with coalition forces, missed a call from a number they believed was the State Department and were trying to get into the airport without any luck. Her husband had pressed ahead in the crowd to try to get them inside.

“We have to find a way to evacuate because our lives are in danger,” Sadat said. “My husband received several threatening messages from unknown sources. We have no chance except escaping.”

Aman Karimi, 50, escorted his daughter and her family to the airport, fearful the Taliban would target her because of her husband’s work with NATO.

“The Taliban have already begun seeking those who have worked with NATO,” he said. “They are looking for them house-by-house at night.”

The Sunni extremists of IS, with links to the group’s more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of brutal attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan’s Shiite Muslim minority, including a 2020 assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul in which they killed women and infants.

The Taliban have fought against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have wrested back control nearly 20 years after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion. The Americans went in following the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida orchestrated while being sheltered by the group.

Amid the warnings and the pending American withdrawal, Canada ended its evacuations, and European nations halted or prepared to stop their own operations.

“The reality on the ground is the perimeter of the airport is closed. The Taliban have tightened the noose. It’s very, very difficult for anybody to get through at this point,” Canadian General Wayne Eyre, the country’s acting Chief of Defense Staff, said ahead of the attack.

Lt. Col. Georges Eiden, Luxembourg’s army representative in neighboring Pakistan, said that Friday would mark the official end for U.S. allies. But two Biden administration officials denied that was the case.

A third official said that the U.S. worked with its allies to coordinate each country’s departure, and some nations asked for more time and were granted it.

“Most depart later in the week,” he said, while adding that some were stopping operations Thursday. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen bluntly warned earlier: “It is no longer safe to fly in or out of Kabul.”

Denmark’s last flight has already departed, and Poland and Belgium have also announced the end of their evacuations. The Dutch government said it had been told by the U.S. to leave Thursday.

But Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said some planes would continue to fly.

“Evacuation operations in Kabul will not be wrapping up in 36 hours. We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,” he said in a tweet.

The Taliban have said they’ll allow Afghans to leave via commercial flights after the deadline next week, but it remains unclear which airlines would return to an airport controlled by the militants. Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said talks were underway between his country and the Taliban about allowing Turkish civilian experts to help run the facility.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

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[PorkChopSandwiches]

Sleepy Joe almost put me to sleep with his rambling

[DemonGeminiX]

I swear, if I have to listen to him talk about his dead son one more time...

[Muddy]

My boy Habibi is fkd.. I wonder how he pulls through this.. His kids start school in under 2 weeks.

[Pony]

My boy Habibi is fkd.. I wonder how he pulls through this.. His kids start school in under 2 weeks.

Did he get out? Last I saw was your post on the day he was supposed to be home.