U.S. Air Strike Hits Islamic State As NATO Allies End Evacuations From Afghanistan
By RFE/RL August 28, 2021
A U.S. air strike targeted an Islamic State (IS) member in eastern Afghanistan on August 28 in retaliation for a deadly bombing outside Kabul airport amid a frantic evacuation of Afghan civilians.
The drone strike came less than two days after a suicide bombing claimed by IS killed as many as 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops outside Kabul's airport at a gate where crowds of Afghans had gathered to try to get in as part of the evacuation.
U.S. Central Command said the drone strike in eastern Nangarhar Province killed one "planner" of Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), which claimed credit for the airport attack.
"The unmanned air strike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target," said Captain Bill Urban of the Central Command.
"We know of no civilian casualties," he added in a statement.
U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to retaliate against IS-K, the extremist group's Afghanistan and Pakistan affiliate, in response to the attack as evacuations continue from Kabul airport after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan.
"We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay," Biden said in televised comments from the White House on August 26.
The U.S. military said on August 27 that it believed there are still "credible threats" against a major airlift operation at Kabul airport ahead of an August 31 deadline agreed with the Taliban to withdraw all foreign forces from the country.
"We certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the reporters on August 27.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, speaking later in the day, said the country's national-security experts have said another attack is "likely" and the next few days will be "the most dangerous period to date."
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned Americans to avoid the airport and said all U.S. citizens at its gates should leave immediately.
Pentagon officials said that the attack on August 26 was carried out by a single suicide bomber at a gate to the airport and that there was no second explosion at a nearby hotel as originally reported.
The U.S.-led evacuation mission is entering its final phase as more NATO allies ended operations in the country after the IS-K suicide attack.
Most of the more than 20 allied countries involved in airlifting Afghans and their own citizens out of Kabul said they had completed evacuations by August 27. The British military ended its evacuation of civilians on August 28.
The White House said that the United States and its allies had evacuated 12,500 people from the airport in the past 24 hours. Washington said its evacuation mission had included a total of 105,000 people thus far.
About 1,000 U.S. citizens are estimated to still be in the country, while thousands more Afghans, many of whom worked with international forces over the past two decades, are still hoping to leave because they fear retaliation from the Taliban once foreign troops have left the war-torn country.
France said it was one the latest to finish its evacuations from Kabul, but would continue to help those who need protection to depart the country.
The airlift had to be stopped because "the security conditions were no longer being met at the airport," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Defense Minister Florence Parly said.
In a statement on August 27, the ministers blamed the "rapid disengagement of the American forces."
Separately, Parly tweeted that French forces had managed to fly some 3,000 people to safety, including more than 2,600 Afghans over the past two weeks.
Italy's final flight out of Kabul left on August 27 as well, with 58 Afghan civilians aboard.
Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini said Italy was able to airlift 5,011 people out of Kabul, all but 121 of them Afghan citizens.
Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had pulled out all its civilians and military from Afghanistan except for a small number of technicians.
In an apparent jab at the United States, he said "countries that say they are the strongest in the world should leave the places they enter much more carefully."
Erdogan said Turkey was in talks with the Taliban on providing technical support to keep the airport running after NATO forces leave.
Biden's administration has been widely blamed for a chaotic evacuation after the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Taliban's takeover of the country. But the president has repeatedly defended the decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan, ending America's longest war.
With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters
Source: https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-evacuations- nato-us-islamic-state-/31432301.html
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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