KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — American forces working under heightened security and the threat of another terror attack pressed ahead with the evacuation from Kabul’s airport Friday, the day after a suicide bombing at the gates wrote a devastating final chapter to the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The death toll rose to 169 Afghans, a number that could increase as authorities examine fragmented remains, and 13 U.S. service members.
The White House and the Pentagon warned there could be more bloodshed ahead of President Joe Biden’s fast-approaching deadline Tuesday to end the airlift and withdraw American forces. The next few days “will be our most dangerous period to date” in the evacuation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Thursday’s bombing — blamed on Afghanistan’s offshoot of the Islamic State group, an enemy of both the Taliban and the West — marked one of the most lethal terror attacks the country has seen. The U.S. said it was the deadliest day for American forces in Afghanistan since 2011.
As the call to prayer echoed Friday through Kabul along with the roar of departing planes, the anxious crowds thronging the airport in hope of escaping Taliban rule appeared as large as ever, despite the scenes of victims lying closely packed together in the aftermath of the bombing.
Afghans, American citizens and other foreigners were all acutely aware the window was closing to get out via the airlift.
Jamshad went to the airport with his wife and three small children. He clutched an invitation to a Western country he didn’t want to identify.
“After the explosion I decided I would try. Because I am afraid now there will be more attacks, and I think now I have to leave,” said Jamshad, who like many Afghans uses only one name.
The Pentagon said Friday that there was just one suicide bomber — at the airport gate — not two, as U.S. officials initially said.
The officials who gave the Afghan death toll were not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Afghan victims included a news agency founder along with a number of impoverished Afghans who had gone to the airport in hopes of realizing a better life.
Details on the American dead — 11 Marines, a Navy sailor and an Army soldier — also began to emerge, ahead of the Pentagon’s release of their names. They included a young Marine and expectant father from Wyoming who was on his first tour of duty in Afghanistan.
British officials said two of the country’s citizens and the child of another Briton also were among those killed when the bomb exploded in the crowd.
On the morning after the attack, the Taliban used a pickup truck full of fighters and three captured Humvees to set up a barrier 1,600 feet from the airport, holding the crowds farther back from the U.S. troops at the gates than before.
U.S. military officials said that some gates were closed and other security measures put in place. They said there were tighter restrictions at Taliban checkpoints and fewer people around the gates. The military said it had also asked the Taliban to close certain roads because of the possibility of suicide bombers in vehicles.
The Pentagon noted the airport already had defenses against rocket attacks and said the U.S. would keep up manned and unmanned flights over the airport for surveillance and protection, including the use of AC-130 gunships.
