The United States carried out a strike against a planner of the ISIL-claimed Kabul airport attack that killed 13 American troops and around 100 Afghans amid ongoing evacuations from the country ahead of the August 31 withdrawal deadline.
A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said American military forces conducted an “over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner” in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, where the Khorasan chapter of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant or Daesh terror outfit is believed to be based.
“Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,” Spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said in a statement.
The strike follows President Joe Biden’s vow to retaliate against the terror group for one of the deadliest attacks against American troops in years.
“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said.
Afghanistan experts say the ISIS-K has a presence in the Nangarhar and Kunar provinces in the east of capital Kabul.
Some reports said the Taliban fighters were among those killed near the crowded airport, which has been guarded by American troops and members of the Taliban militant group which took over Kabul nearly two weeks ago in a sweep of the country on the eve of American military drawdown from the war-hit country.
The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s with an iron hand, and the ISIS, which emerged from Iraq and Syrian war zones a decade ago, and follows an extreme form of ideology, have clashing interests in Afghanistan.
After Thursday’s deadly attack, which targeted people outside Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate, the U.S. has resumed evacuations at a fast pace.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul urged Americans near the gates to Hamid Karzai International Airport to “leave immediately,” following reports of “security threats.”
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey gate, East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave immediately,” the embassy said.
According to media reports, the U.S. military and the Taliban tried to exert authority at the airport and in the streets since Kabul does not have a formal government in place since the Taliban’s surprisingly quick takeover and collapse of the government headed by former president Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country.
The Taliban fighters, who roam the city with Kalashnikov rifles in their hands, reportedly kept crowds at bay, away from the airport’s entrance gates and also manned checkpoints with trucks and at least one Humvee parked on a road.
The White House Friday said 12,500 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in the previous 24 hours, despite the attacks.
Meanwhile, neighboring Pakistan has agreed to take in thousands of people being evacuated from Afghanistan, who will stay in various cities of the country during the transit time before departure to their destinations.
