A US drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying "multiple suicide bombers" from Afghanistan's Islamic State affiliate before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul's international airport, American officials have said. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike.
The Afghan official spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Witnesses to the drone strike said it targeted two cars parked in a residential building near the airport, killing and wounding several civilians. Officials had initially reported a separate rocket attack on a building near the airport, but it turned out to be the same event.
According to a senior US official, the vehicles were targeted after individuals were seen loading explosives into the trunk. The official said there was an initial explosion caused by the missile, followed by a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of explosives inside the vehicle. The US believes that two Islamic State group individuals who were targeted were killed.
Dina Mohammadi said her extended family resided in the building next to the targeted vehicles and that several of them were killed, including children. She was not immediately able to provide the names or ages of the deceased.
Karim, a district representative, said the strike ignited a fire that made it difficult to rescue people. "There was smoke everywhere and I took some children and women out," he said.
Ahmaduddin, a neighbour, said he had collected the bodies of children after the strike, which set off more explosions inside the house. Like many Afghans, the two men each go by one name.
A statement from US Central Command said that the US is aware of reports of civilian casualties and is assessing the results of the strike.
Navy Captain William Urban, spokesman for Central Command, said that "substantial and powerful" subsequent explosions resulted from the destruction of the vehicle, which may have caused additional casualties.
The strike came just two days before the US is set to conclude a massive two-week-long airlift of more than 114,000 Afghans and foreigners and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America's longest war with the Taliban back in power.
The US State Department released a statement signed by around 100 countries, as well as Nato and the European Union, saying they had received "assurances" from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave the country.
The Taliban has said it will allow normal travel after the US withdrawal is completed on Tuesday and it assumed control of the airport.
The strike followed an Islamic State suicide attack outside the airport killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members. The US carried out a drone strike elsewhere in the country on Saturday that it said killed two Isis members.
US President Joe Biden had vowed to keep up the airstrikes, saying Saturday that another attack was "highly likely". The State Department called the threat "specific" and "credible".
The Sunni extremists of Isis, with links to the group's more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan's Shiite Muslim minority, including a 2020 assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul that killed women and newborns.
The Taliban have fought against the IS affiliate in the past and have pledged to not allow Afghanistan to become a base for terror attacks. The US-led invasion in 2001 came in response to the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaeda planned and executed while being sheltered by the Taliban.
The Taliban increased security around the airport after Thursday's attack, clearing away the large crowds that had gathered outside the gates hoping to join the airlift.
Britain ended its evacuation flights on Saturday, and most US allies concluded theirs earlier in the week. But US military cargo planes continued their runs into the airport Sunday, ahead of a Tuesday deadline set by President Joe Biden to withdraw all American troops.
Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the US has the capacity to evacuate the estimated 300 Americans who remain in the country and wish to leave. He said the US does not currently plan to have an ongoing embassy presence after the withdrawal but will ensure "safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident" after Tuesday, as well as for "those Afghans who helped us".
In interviews with Sunday talk shows, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was working with other countries to ensure that the airport functions normally after the withdrawal and that the Taliban allow people to travel freely.
The Taliban has given similar assurances in recent days, even as it urged Afghans to remain and help rebuild the war-ravaged country.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have sought to flee the country since the Taliban's rapid takeover earlier this month, fearing a return to the harsh form of Islamic rule the group imposed on Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. Others fear revenge attacks or general instability.
The Taliban has pledged amnesty for all Afghans, even those who worked with the US and its allies, and says it wants to restore peace and security after decades of war. But many Afghans distrust the group, and there have been reports of summary executions and other human rights abuses in areas under Taliban control.
The shooting of a folk singer in a tense region north of Kabul was bound to contribute to such fears. Fawad Andarabi's family said the Taliban shot him for no reason, just days after they had searched his home and drank tea with him.
"He was innocent, a singer who only was entertaining people," his son, Jawad, said. "They shot him in the head on the farm."
There are repeated allegations that the folk singer #FawadAndarabi was executed by the Taliban in Kishnabad village of Andarab. There is mounting evidence that the Taliban of 2021 is the same as the intolerant, violent, repressive Taliban of 2011. https://t.co/fQ4HhVuM4D
— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) August 28, 2021
The shooting happened in the Andarabi Valley, for which the family is named, some 100km north of Kabul, where the Taliban battled local fighters even after seizing the capital. The Taliban says it has retaken the region, which is near mountainous Panjshir, the only one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces not under Taliban control.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his group would investigate the shooting, without providing any further information. The Taliban banned music as un-Islamic when it last ruled the country.
Andarabi played the ghichak, a bowed lute, and sang traditional songs about his birthplace, his people and the country. A video online showed him at one performance, sitting on a rug with the mountains behind him.
"There is no country in the world like my homeland, a proud nation," he sang. "Our beautiful valley, our great-grandparents' homeland."
Karima Bennoune, the United Nations special rapporteur on cultural rights, said she had "grave concern" over Andarabi's killing. "We call on governments to demand the Taliban respect the #humanrights of #artists," she tweeted.
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, also decried the killing.
"There is mounting evidence that the Taliban of 2021 is the same as the intolerant, violent, repressive Taliban of 2001," she tweeted. "Nothing has changed on that front."
New York Times: The air strikes have upended daily life in the Iranian capital, Tehran.