Explosion outside Kabul airport after warning from Taliban
An explosion rocked Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, after warnings from the Taliban. Since the Taliban seized power two weeks ago, many have been trooping to the airport in a bid to be evacuated from the country. CNN quoted some US officials as saying it appears to be a suicide attack. Pentagon spokesperson […]
An explosion rocked Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, after warnings from the Taliban.
Since the Taliban seized power two weeks ago, many have been trooping to the airport in a bid to be evacuated from the country.
CNN quoted some US officials as saying it appears to be a suicide attack.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby confirmed there was an explosion outside of the airport.
“We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can,” he said in a tweet.
The US Embassy described the explosion as “large” and said there were reports of gunfire.
The embassy urged Americans to avoid travel to the airport.
US officials said earlier on Thursday that concerns about security around the airport have increased based on “a very specific threat stream.”
The top US diplomat in Kabul, Amb. Ross Wilson, said Thursday that he could not get into the specifics of the security threat outside the gates of the Kabul airport cited in an embassy alert, but noted that “it was clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling.”
A spokesperson for the UK government said the government was “working urgently to establish what has happened and its impact on the ongoing evacuation effort.”
“Our primary concern remains the safety of our personnel, British citizens and the citizens of Afghanistan. We are in close contact with our US and other NATO allies at an operational level on the immediate response to this incident.”
According to CNBC, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said there may be as many as 1,500 Americans in Afghanistan left to evacuate, a calculation he explained was “difficult to pin down with absolute precision at any given moment.”
The nation’s top diplomat added that the U.S. currently is “aggressively reaching out” to about 1,000 contacts “multiple times a day, through multiple channels of communication” to determine if they still want to leave and to give them instructions on how to do so.