A suicide bomb attack had killed atleast 100 on Thursday at Kabul Airport. At least 13 U.S. troops, disrupting the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee were being killed. Hours after the twin blasts, a third explosion was reported by news agency AFP while unconfirmed reports said there may have been more.
Kabul health officials said that atleast 90 civilians were killed. Video shot by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies strewn around a canal on the edge of the airport. At least two blasts rocked the area, witnesses said.
According to a report by a leading news daily, ISIS said one of its suicide bombers targeted "translators and collaborators with the American army". U.S. officials also blamed the group.
The American casualties, which increased to 13 from 12 later on Thursday according to U.S. officials, were believed to be the most U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in a single incident since 30 personnel died when a helicopter was shot down in August 2011.
The report also said that the attack was carried out as U.S. forces raced to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan, after President Joe Biden said the United States had long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country in 2001: to root out al Qaeda militants and prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Biden said during televised comments from the White House, "We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay."
One Afghan who had been trying to reach the airport said, "For a moment I thought my eardrums were blasted and I lost my sense of hearing. I saw bodies and body parts flying in the air like a tornado blowing plastic bags. I saw bodies, body parts, elders and injured men, women and children scattered. That little water flowing in the sewage canal had turned into blood."
The U.S. deaths were the first in action in Afghanistan in 18 months, a fact likely to be cited by critics who accuse Biden of recklessly abandoning a stable and hard-won status quo by ordering an abrupt pullout, stated report.