The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the double attack in Kabul

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the double attack that caused a massacre in the vicinity of the Kabul airport, the Afghan capital, according to a message broadcast by the extremist militia channel on Telegram.

Two suicide bombers and men armed with rifles attacked a crowd at the entrance to the air terminal, where in recent days the evacuation of those who want to flee the country after the Taliban seize power has been concentrated.

The Afghan branch of IS, called ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attack and specified that a suicide bomber, who they identified, detonated an explosive vest between Afghans and US forces.

This coincides with what was reported by General Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of the United States Central Command, who blamed the extremist militia for the attack in which 12 US servicemen died and 15 others were injured.

The Afghan News Network TOLO He reported that the explosion occurred at the access to the airport in the crowd waiting for a chance to board an aircraft.

The Taliban, who control the outskirts of the airport, put the deaths at

For his part, Paul Farthing, a former British military man who witnessed the attack from a car, said he saw one of the assailants armed with an AK-47 rifle. “Suddenly we heard shots and our vehicle was attacked, and if our driver had not turned around, he would have been shot in the head by a man with an AK-47,” Farthing wrote on Twitter.

The Taliban, who control the outskirts of the airport, put the dead at “between 13 and 20” and the wounded at 52, condemning the attacks and saying they “took place in an area where security is in the hands of US forces.”

The Taliban Islamist militia “strongly condemns the attacks on civilians at the Kabul airport,” its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter.

The attacks this Thursday, the first of its kind against Afghan civilians and foreign nationals since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, They arrived hours after several Western countries warned of attacks imminent at the international airport of the Afghan capital by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which has been nurtured by former Taliban with a vision of Islam even more extreme than the official one of the Afghan movement.

Hamid Karzai International Airport, conflict zone

In the last week, Kabul airport was the scene of some of the most dramatic images, and from there they have departed one flight after another to remove those who fear reprisals for having collaborated or worked for foreign forces or that the Taliban will re-impose the brutal regime that characterized their previous government until it was overthrown by an international invasion led by the United States, in 2001.

Read Also:  France Warns Algeria Amid Deepening Diplomatic Crisis

The Taliban have insisted that all foreign troops must leave Afghanistan by August 31, the date set by the United States to complete its withdrawal, and that evacuations must also cease on that day.

The White House He reported that 101,300 people have already been evacuated from Afghanistan since the end of July, 95,700 of them since the Taliban took power and 5,000 by the United States in the last 24 hours. They also notified that despite what happened this Thursday, they will continue with the established plan, in reference to the evacuation of “around a thousand Americans” from Afghanistan before August 31.

While, other countries had already ended their evacuations to make way for the withdrawal of their soldiers and diplomats Before the attacks, such is the case in Germany that it did so on Thursday, as announced by its Defense Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Hours before the attacks, the UK had said a “terrorist attack” could happen in hours, and Belgium that there was a threat of a “suicide bombing”.

Finally, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom asked their citizens not to go to the airport, and the Australian Foreign Ministry said there was a “very high threat of a terrorist attack”.

ISIS-K

Months after ISIS declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014, former Pakistani Taliban pledged allegiance to it and joined other militants in Afghanistan. to form a regional chapter. The central ISIS leadership formally recognized the group a year after it settled in northeast Afghanistan, in the Kunar, Nangarhar and Nuristan provinces. The group also established cells in other parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, including Kabul, according to UN monitors.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for some of the wildest attacks in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He massacred civilians in both countries in mosques, shrines, squares and hospitals.

The extremist Sunni group has particularly targeted Muslims it considers heretics, particularly Shiites. In August 2019, he claimed responsibility for an attack on the Shiites at a wedding in Kabul, in which 91 people died.

.

Recent Articles

Related News

Leave A Reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here