Afghan men take pictures of a vehicle from which rockets were fired, as Taliban forces stand guard, in Kabul, Afghanistan August 30, 2021. REUTER/Stringer NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

Ben Burke Producer

International

Rockets fired at Kabul airport after US drone strikes, as time winds down to withdraw

Aug 30, 2021

Ben Burke Producer

By Ben Burke (Producer)

As the United States continues to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies out of Kabul Monday, the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate ISIS-K claimed responsibility for rocket fire targeting the city’s airport. The video above shows the scene in Kabul after the rocket fire, as well as Pentagon officials discussing evacuation efforts.

The five rockets missed the Hamid Karzai International Airport instead hitting a nearby neighborhood. There were no immediate report of casualties, and the Kabul rocket fire did not halt the evacuation process.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chief of Staff Ron Klain briefed the President on the rocket attack according to a statement by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. She stated “The President was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground.”

The rocket fire comes just days after a suicide bombing at one of the airport gates killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.

The U.S. retaliated twice. The second drone strike on Sunday hit a vehicle carrying multiple Islamic State suicide bombers. A senior U.S. official said there was an initial explosion caused by the drone missile, followed by a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of explosives inside the vehicle. The U.S. believes that two Islamic State group individuals who were targeted were killed.

In a statement, U.S. Central Command said it is looking into the reports of civilian casualties that may have been caused by the secondary explosions. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike.

These recent attacks ratcheted up the pressure on the U.S. to get the remaining Americans and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan. There is also pressure from President Joe Biden’s deadline to get everyone out by Tuesday. “Obviously we are reaching the end of our prescribed mission,” Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff said.

There are about 300 U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline. Roughly 280 others have told the State Department they are Americans, but they either plan to stay in the country or are undecided.

On Monday morning, the White House said about 1,200 people were evacuated on 26 U.S. military flights and two allied flight in the last 24 hours aboard. According to the Pentagon about 122,000 people have been evacuated so far, making it the largest airlift evacuation to date.

Tags: Joe Biden, Middle East Crisis

Maj. Gen. William “Hank” Taylor, Deputy Director of the Joint Staff for Regional Operations: “Over the weekend and into today, evacuation operations continued yesterday, twenty six U.S. military aircraft all see Seventeen’s departed with approximately 1200 evacuees in total. There were 28 flights out of Kabul airport in the last 24 hours, which included the remaining coalition departures.”

“122,000 were evacuated, approximately 5,400 Americans. We continue to have the capability to evacuate and fly out those until the very end. But as you talk about active peace, we’re continuing to work with Department of State on that and continue evacuation and military operations.”

John Kirby, Pentagon Press Secretary: “Right now as we get into the the this has always been a dangerous operation, but we’re in a particularly dangerous time right now, Idris, I think you can understand that we’re not going to be detailing the status of any particular gate right now. As the general said, we still have the ability and the capability to conduct evacuation operations even while we are completing and working to complete retrograde of U.S. forces.”

“We certainly assess, as the general said, that there is a there’s still an active threat in various ways that we have to be prepared for. And what I will tell you, without getting into specific systems and in their availability, which I think you can understand why we wouldn’t, we continue to have and will maintain the capability to protect ourselves and defend ourselves as we continue to complete the retrograde.”

“We are not in a position to dispute it right now. And as the general said, we’re assessing and we’re investigating. Look, make no mistake, no military on the face of the earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military, and nobody wants to see innocent life taken. We take it very, very seriously.”

“When we know that we have caused innocent life to be lost in the conduct of our operations. We’re transparent about it. We’re investigating this. I’m not going to get ahead of it. But if we have, you know, verifiable information that we did, in fact, take innocent life here, then then we will we’ll be transparent about that, too. Nobody wants to see that happen. But you know what else we didn’t want to see happen. We didn’t want to see happen what we believe to be a very real, a very specific and a very imminent threat to the Hamid Karzai International Airport and to our troops operating at that airport, as well as civilians around it and in it.”