American Military and State Dept. had warned people to move away from the airport perimeter …
12 US troops and 60 civilians DOA….
There where injuries to other soldiers and more that 140 civilians….
The US Intelligence community believes the attacks are NOT from the Taliban but a ISIS splinter group ISIS-K…..
The Taliban and others have condemned the attacks….
But it IS an example of the unsuitability that will exist now in Afghanistan….
The Pentagon Afghan Airbridge Evacuation flight’s continue non-stop….
Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 12 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials said 11 Marines and one Navy medic were among those who died. They said another 12 service members were wounded and warned the toll could grow. More than 140 Afghans were wounded, an Afghan official said.
One of the bombers struck people standing knee-deep in a wastewater canal under the sweltering sun, throwing bodies into the fetid water. Those who moments earlier had hoped to get on flights out could be seen carrying the wounded to ambulances in a daze, their own clothes darkened with blood.
A U.S. official said the complex attack was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State group. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz and condemned the attack.
Western officials had warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport, but that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31.
Emergency, an Italian charity that operates hospitals in Afghanistan, said it had received at least 60 patients wounded in the airport attack, in addition to 10 who were dead when they arrived.
“Surgeons will be working into the night,” said Marco Puntin, the charity’s manager in Afghanistan. The wounded overflowed the triage zone into the physiotherapy area and more beds were being added, he said.
The Afghan official who confirmed the overall Afghan toll spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said one explosion was near an airport entrance and another was a short distance away by a hotel.
Even as the area was hit, evacuation flights continued to take off from Kabul airport….
The fuck-ups continue…
U.S. Gave Taliban List of People They Wanted Out
“U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials,” Politico reports.
“The move was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan… But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.”
Crowds Did Not Leave Kabul Airport Despite Warnings
BBC: “People were in such a state of desperation that they’re not going to pay attention to this kind of information. They’re hearing all kinds of rumors and they’re just trying to focus on getting out of the country.”
Flight Carrying Lawmakers Denied Landing In Kabul
A private jet thought to be carrying another U.S. congressional delegation has been denied permission to land at Kabul airport, CNN reports.
More on the afghan Airport bombing…..
Biden and Harris have stopped any political/governmental actions are said to be concentrating solely on the Afghan situation….
Former Trump administration national security adviser H.R. McMaster called on President Biden to “reverse course” in the aftermath of Thursday’s terrorist bombings in Kabul, urging him to scrap his deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, cut off dealings with the Taliban and launch a new war on terror against jihadi networks throughout Central Asia.
“What we saw today is just the beginning,” McMaster said in an interview with Yahoo News about the deadly attacks in Kabul. “We are going to see horrible image after horrible image. … We’re going to confront the steady drumbeat of horrors inflicted on the Afghan people. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to give a damn? Or is this going to be like Rwanda?” He was referring to the genocide in 1994, when ethnic extremists slaughtered 800,000 people in Rwanda….
U.S. officials had been stating for days that they had specific, credible warnings of a potential terrorist attack on the airport by an Islamic State affiliate called ISIS-K. There has been no reported claim of responsibility for the Thursday explosions so far, but McMaster said in the interview that he suspects that the Haqqani network — a criminal and terror organization aligned with the Taliban and al-Qaida — played a role.
“I would not be surprised at all if ISIS-K — in fact, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t the case — is being used by the Haqqani network as a cutout to attack us and humiliate us on our way out,” he said.
H.R. McMaster
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
Yahoo News
McMaster on Afghanistan carnage: ‘What we saw today is just the beginning’
Michael Isikoff
Michael Isikoff·Chief Investigative Correspondent
Thu, August 26, 2021, 2:51 PM·4 min read
In this article:
H.R. McMaster
26th United States National Security Advisor
Joe Biden
46th and current president of the United States
Donald Trump
45th President of the United States
Former Trump administration national security adviser H.R. McMaster called on President Biden to “reverse course” in the aftermath of Thursday’s terrorist bombings in Kabul, urging him to scrap his deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, cut off dealings with the Taliban and launch a new war on terror against jihadi networks throughout Central Asia.
“What we saw today is just the beginning,” McMaster said in an interview with Yahoo News about the deadly attacks in Kabul. “We are going to see horrible image after horrible image. … We’re going to confront the steady drumbeat of horrors inflicted on the Afghan people. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to give a damn? Or is this going to be like Rwanda?” He was referring to the genocide in 1994, when ethnic extremists slaughtered 800,000 people in Rwanda.
McMaster’s comments came as Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed two explosions on Thursday. Kirby described one of the blasts as a “complex attack” outside the Abbey Gate near the Kabul airport that reportedly killed “a number of U.S. service members” and as many as 60 Afghans, including some children, and injured more than 143 people.
Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two powerful explosions killed at least six people outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday.
Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two explosions in Kabul on Thursday. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
The attacks prompted the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to warn U.S. citizens to stay away from the airport and leave the area “immediately” if they were by the gates. The blasts deal another setback to President Biden’s goal of evacuating all Americans from the country by his self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 for removing U.S. troops.
U.S. officials had been stating for days that they had specific, credible warnings of a potential terrorist attack on the airport by an Islamic State affiliate called ISIS-K. There has been no reported claim of responsibility for the Thursday explosions so far, but McMaster said in the interview that he suspects that the Haqqani network — a criminal and terror organization aligned with the Taliban and al-Qaida — played a role.
“I would not be surprised at all if ISIS-K — in fact, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t the case — is being used by the Haqqani network as a cutout to attack us and humiliate us on our way out,” he said.
Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, addresses a large congregation at the Pul-i-Khishti Mosque in Kabul, last Friday, Aug. 20, 2021.
Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, at the Pul-i-Khishti Mosque in Kabul on Aug. 20. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Known for his hawkish views on foreign policy, McMaster portrayed Thursday’s attacks as a vindication for his sharp criticisms of Biden’s decision to pull out the troops by Aug. 31, as well as what he has called former President Donald Trump’s “surrender agreement” with the Taliban in February 2020, which paved the way for the U.S. withdrawal.
McMaster said he was not speaking as a partisan and that there was plenty of blame to go around among multiple U.S. presidents. But he was especially withering in his assessment of how Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conducted their negotiations with the Taliban. The president and secretary in effect decided, McMaster said, “Hey, we’re going to sit down with the Taliban and essentially negotiate our withdrawal. Afghan government, stay on the sidelines. What did that do for the legitimacy of the Afghan government? … Then what did we do? We forced them to release 5,000 prisoners — for nothing.”
At this point, McMaster continued, “it’s time to reverse course.” He then called on Biden to scrap the troop withdrawal, extend the perimeter around the airport, create other safe areas in Afghanistan where civilians can be protected from the Taliban and even “engage” with anti-Taliban resistance groups that have begun fighting in the northern regions of the country.
More broadly, McMaster called for a renewed and more robust war on terrorism in the region.
“We have to redouble counterterrorism efforts broadly across the region, with Central Asian states,” he said, “in the areas of intelligence sharing and going after these groups quite aggressively — not just with military but with law enforcement capabilities, with financial actions — to isolate these groups from sources of support. We have to make clear that we will not tolerate American leaders advocating for recognition of the Taliban.”
Michael Isikoff in Yahoo! News
https://news.yahoo.com/mc-master-on-afghanistan-carnage-what-we-saw-today-is-just-the-beginning-185143366.html
2-minute video of interview:
https://edgecast-vod.yimg.com/geminivideoads/ac8cbe50-569a-50e0-a247-7cfd874498e3/video_output_101.mp4
Sorry that included far more than my inteneded extract.