Filenews 27 August 2021
The death toll of the Islamic State group's jihadist attack on Kabul's international airport has reached 103 dead, according to information from The Wall Street Journal.
According to the newspaper's report, at least 90 Afghans and at least 13 members of the US armed forces are dead.
At the same time, a hospital source and Taliban official reported in recent hours that at least 72 civilians had died in the attack perpetrated by Islamic State jihadists last Thursday.
At least twenty-eight Taliban members are among the people who died in the Islamic State offensive outside Kabul airport, an Islamist movement official told Reuters news agency today.
"We lost more people than the Americans," said the official, who asked not to be named. He said he sees no reason to extend the August 31 deadline for the evacuation of foreign troops from the country.
At least thirteen U.S. military personnel, including ten Marines, were killed and 18 others wounded in the attack on the border of the Afghan capital's international airport, where a large crowd of people remained gathered and hoped they could leave the country. In addition to the Taliban and the US military, dozens of civilians were killed, including children. Responsibility for the action was claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State.
The operation to evacuate civilians trying to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban seize power through Kabul's international airport accelerated after yesterday's deadly attack, a Western officer on the ground told Reuters news agency.
There are frequent aircraft take-offs, the officer assured, who is not named.
Western officer: Evacuation operation accelerated
The operation to evacuate civilians trying to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban seize power through Kabul's international airport accelerated after yesterday's deadly attack, a Western officer on the ground told Reuters news agency.
There are frequent aircraft take-offs, the officer assured, who is not named.
US President Joe Biden, who spoke from the White House about the crisis in Afghanistan, assured that the operation would "continue" until August 31, which confirmed that the deadline remains for the completion of the evacuation operation and the withdrawal of the US military from the country. He again defended his decision to proceed with the withdrawal.
Calling "heroes" who carried out a "dangerous and altruistic mission to save the lives of others" the fallen, Mr Biden proclaimed that the US will "pursue" IS, reciprocate the blow with "strength and precision": "we will make them pay", he stressed. He has already asked for operational plans to be drawn up and presented to him to strike at the Islamic State in Khorasan (ISK), he added, saying he would involve additional forces if required. "We will not forget, we will not forgive, we will chase you and you will pay," Mr Biden said, addressing those responsible for the carnage.
In response to the attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier convened an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Afghanistan. Washington had already made it clear earlier that it would continue its operation to evacuate foreign and Afghan civilians as time is pressing hard. Western governments condemned the attack, stressing that the evacuation operation, which until yesterday allowed nearly 100,000 people to leave the country, must not be stopped.
Thousands of Afghans continued to gather at the international airport yesterday despite warnings from the governments of the US, Britain, Australia and other states about an imminent "terrorist" act. The new Taliban regime, through its spokesman Zabiula Mujahid, in turn "strongly condemned" the "bombings", hastening to point out that they were committed in the area of responsibility of the US military.
After the rapid recapture of power by the Islamist rebels, the great airport of Kabul is the last location in Afghanistan where foreign troops, mostly members of the US military, are located. NATO and the EU called for the evacuation operation in Kabul to continue despite the "terrorist attack".
Panic
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the "absolutely heinous" attack. Berlin has announced that it has completed flights as part of the evacuation operation, as has the Netherlands, Canada and Belgium. Other countries, including Britain and France, have made it clear that they are continuing their evacuation operations.
After the explosions, Paris announced the repatriation to Paris, for security reasons, of Ambassador David Martinon, who remained at the airport until yesterday.
According to military sources, one of the explosions took place near the Abby gate, one of the three accesses to the hospital. "It was a huge explosion inside the crowd waiting in front of an airport gate," An eyewitness, Miland, told The French Agency. Another eyewitness saw "a man running holding an injured child in his arms."
The pace of flights, which had been accelerating in the previous days, had begun to slow down on Wednesday. According to a White House count last Thursday morning, 13,400 people were evacuated in the past 24 hours, 5,100 with U.S. transport and 8,300 to 74 Allied aircraft, despite the chaos at the airport from the massive flow of prospective refugees.
The day before yesterday Wednesday, the head of US diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, assured that the Taliban had pledged to let the Americans and Afghans who are "in danger" leave even after August 31. Germany said it had received assurances that commercial flights could resume.
"Painful moment"
The impending end of the evacuation operation raises concerns that many Afghans who have worked in recent years for foreign powers or for the Western-backed government – which has collapsed – and feel threatened by the Taliban, will not be able to leave in time. "This is a painful moment" because "people who had the right to be transferred to the Netherlands will be abandoned," Dutch Foreign Minister Sigred Kaach and Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bayleveld summed up.
The ISK has claimed responsibility for some of the most bloody attacks in recent years in Afghanistan, with hundreds killed. It targets above all Muslims that it considers collectively heretics, especially the Shiites. He thus claimed responsibility for the attack on a Shiite marriage in Kabul in August 2019, which had claimed the lives of 91 people.
Although these are two Sunni radical armed organisations, IS and the Taliban have a antagonistic relationship characterised by mutual hatred.
On Thursday, analysts had pointed out that the activity of the ISK had stopped almost completely for 12 days, a possible indication that it was planning a major attack.
But the warnings did not prevent, before the explosions, thousands of Afghans from remaining in the vicinity of the airport.
Many Afghans fear that the Taliban will impose the same kind of fundamentalist, barbaric regime as the one that oppressed the country from 1996 to 2001.
Women and members of national minorities in particular are concerned about their fate.
Having seized power again, the Taliban attempt to present a more moderate face, without convincing many.
