US Forces Suffer 13 Dead, 15 Wounded In Kabul Airport Terror Bomber Attacks, Many Civilian Casualties
U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command, provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with an orderly drawdown of designated personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Nicholas Guevara)
UPDATE: Another US service member died as a result of injuries sustained during the attack, so this post has been updated to reflect the total number of dead to 13
The evacuation of Kabul is no longer without US casualties; 12 American service members killed, 15 wounded, and an unknown number of civilians killed and wounded by what is being described as a “complex attack” near the Kabul airport.
Washington Post:
Explosions outside the airport in Kabul Thursday killed 12 U.S. service members and dozens of civilians, said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement from the Pentagon.
The attack that followed repeated threat warnings from the United States and its allies.
“We can confirm that a number of U.S. service members were killed in today’s complex attack at Kabul airport,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “A number of others are being treated for wounds.”
The deaths marked the first U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan since February 2020, when two American soldiers were killed in an insider attack by an Afghan soldier. The Trump administration signed a deal with the Taliban a few weeks later that included a promise that the militant group would not target U.S. troops.
U.S. officials believe the attack outside Kabul international airport was carried out by an affiliate of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K due to communications that were made by the group around the time of the attack, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post. A second U.S. official said the ISIS-K is the leading suspect in the attack.
According to Kirby, the first blast took place right outside the airport’s Abbey gate and the second at the nearby Baron Hotel. Scattered gunshots were heard after the blasts.
Large crowds of Afghans have been gathering daily at the airport in hopes of fleeing the country following the Taliban takeover.
Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby and CENTCOM commander, Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., briefed the press about the deadly events at Kabul airport.
BREAKING: Pentagon updates on explosions near Kabul airport:
– 12 U.S. service members killed
– 15 U.S. service members injured
– "A number" of Afghan civilians killed, injured
– Suicide bombers "assessed to be ISIS fighters"More: https://t.co/YpIc4nkYvT pic.twitter.com/IfibifUfS6
— ABC News (@ABC) August 26, 2021
Awful. Terribly sad though not exactly of world shaking surprise. No doubt the neocon regular suspects will trumpet this in their case against the US withdrawing from Afghanistan, a sentiment they no doubt share with the bombers.Report
This is why we’re leaving.
It’s so ham-handed and stupid that I am more than happy enough to entertain conspiracy theories about it.Report
Quick, someone find out if Bill Kristol was on one of those emergency flights to Kabul!Report
Just imagining Bill Kristol and John Bolton driving around in a car with beer bottle molotov cocktails… like the two lawyers who got nabbed during the mostly-peaceful riots.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/06/07/nyregion/07nyunrest-molotov/07nyunrest-molotov-mobileMasterAt3x.jpgReport
I believe you mean former lawyers don’t you? IIRC they got disbarred over that matter.Report
You never stop being a lawyer.
You just stop being able to practice in this or that particular jurisdiction.Report
Lawyers are people who are learned in the law. Attorneys are people who act on behalf of other people (including people like corporations!).Report
So that makes you a juggler?
Hey-oh! *rimshot*Report
What’s stupid about it? You take a shot over a fence, the US troops might come after you. You blow yourself up, the US troops have to sit there and take it. There’s no one left to bring to justice. If you’ve been spending the last 20 years defying the West, this is your last, best shot.Report
The West is going away!
Take one of the victory laps that involves, you know, the ability to enjoy food!Report
Two people are dining on figs and pomegranates in paradise.Report
You assume this was about killing US Troops.
Instead of perhaps the final attack during the US war in Afghanistan, we should see this as the first attack in the upcoming Afghan civil war between the Taliban, ISIS-K, and whomever else.Report
Great. So we get to give money to the Taliban to fight ISIS on our behalf.
This movie is dedicated to the brave mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.Report
The Americans going away is the problem for the likely perpetrators. Al Queda in Afghanistan very much prefers their Americans to be in Afghanistan. Does wonders for recruitment, keeps them in solidarity with the Taliban (who’d otherwise and probably currently are pondering whether it might be better to put a bullet in their collective heads).
This bombing is their attempt to get us to stay.Report
ISIS is not al Qaeda, nor are they allies.Report
Also, ISIS’ goals are not a mystery, and they are not served by the U.S. staying. They are, however, served by creating more chaos in Afghanistan for the Taliban to deal with, which I think we can expect them to do for the foreseeable future after the U.S. is gone.Report
You and I are saying the same thing. You can be sure ISIS would prefer the U.S. there to the U.S. gone.Report
That’s the opposite of what I’m saying. ISIS is not Al Qaeda. Unlike al Qaeda, their goal is not terror attacks against the U.S. (this one wasn’t even an attack aimed at the U.S.) with the ultimate aim of altering U.S. policy and presence in the region. Their goal is the same as ISIS in Iraq and Syria: to rule. That goal is not in any way served by the U.S. being there. It is, however, served by making life as difficult as possible for the Taliban while they rule.Report
If you see the Taliban as fascist, ISIS-K is anti-fascist.Report
So you think they want the U.S. out while carrying out an attack on the U.S. that heightens the odds the U.S. will linger to play what-a-mullah in the mountains a little bit longer while ignoring many Taliban targets to bomb that’d be enormously easier to reach? Doesn’t compute for me.Report
And now the Taliban has uparmoured humvees instead of “technicals”, and goat herders are running around with, to quote a caption of a Taliban who posed for a pic “”That’s an FN SCAR heavy with that looks like a FLIR thermal optic, or maybe an ATN night vision scope. Either way that’s $10,000 worth of my tax dollars ” –and that’s ONE dude.
A whole lotta people need to get fired over this fiasco.Report
There’re an assortment of complaints that can be legitimately laid at the Biden admins feet over withdrawal. Kvetching about the equipment that the Taliban gained is emphatically not one of them. That gear was given to the Afghan military over the course of several administrations. There was utterly no way to remove it from the country short of stripping it away from the same said military (in which case the Admin would instantly gain plausible blame for the Afghanistan Governments immediate collapse).
Unless you can travel back in time to stop all that gear from being giving to the Afghan military then it was going to fall into the hands of whoever they surrendered to. Don’t like the Taliban getting that gear? Take it up with W. and Rumsfeld.Report
This. It wasn’t our stuff anymore.Report
“Don’t like the Taliban getting that gear? Take it up with W. and Rumsfeld.”
I didn’t like it then and don’t like it now. I’m not blaming Biden for this, I’m blaming the entire fricking us foreign policy since we invaded the graveyard of empires. I can imagine the conversation: “The brits were in Afghanistan, the Russians, IIRC, the Persians or Greeks too. It’s always ended up poorly. Here’s an idea, let’s invade–’cause we’re smart and we’ll do it better that all those other guys”.
Biden gets partial credit as it happened on his watch, just like he’d get credit if we had a roaring economy.Report
“We’ll be greeted as liberators.”Report
While I agree with the broader point, citing Alexander the Great and the graveyard of empires is a great way of advertising you have at best a cursory knowledge of the history of the region while chastising people for not knowing it’s history.
Hint, both the Greeks and Persians were very successful in their empire building there. As were a bunch of other powers your not bothering to remember.Report
I’m surprised this sort of thing hasn’t happened already, to be quite honest. Appalled that it happened at all and it demonstrates pretty forcefully that the Taliban isn’t going to be much better at effectively governing than the more pro-western government it displaced. Which means the Taliban will eventually be displaced too.
With someone worse, someone better, or just someone different? It’s a place where there appear to be no “good guys.”
Our deep sympathies to the families of those lost. What matters is their sacrifice that others might have a chance to come home to a place of relative peace and prosperity, or at minimum, leave a place of terror and violence.Report
I heard some talking head going on about how the Aug 30 deadline was too quick and the concern over ISIS-K was overblown because the Taliban were fighting them.
As if there was a front in the conflict that you could draw on a map or something.Report
Probably the only thing that made it take so long is ISIS-K was as surprised as anyone else at the speed of the Taliban’s advance.Report
Twenty years into the “war on terror” and what, 50 sent Vietnam, and the general public (and it seems a certain amount of the military upper brass) still dream of, plan for, and expect wars with battle lines, armies out in the open, and classic tactics.
Like asymmetrical warfare, guerilla tactics, and all that are just fads that will pass.
I don’t hear the Navy complaining no one forms lines of battle anymore, but then again I’ve heard they’ve had to restart war games because it’s unsporting to send in suicide bombers via speedy little inflatable craft.
No fair sinking our carriers before we’ve even gotten to blow someone up.
I mean I get it — blowing up armies stupid enough to be out in the open is America’s hat. Show us a tank battalion, an annoying bridge, or a wedding that looks suspiciously terroristic and we’ll have bombs raining down in moments and tanks rolling through later to squash anything that’s left.
Which is why nobody fights us that way. Well, except the wedding thing. Drones have really just made it easier to deal with smaller problems with bombs.Report
It’s like the mask thing.
Report
I said earlier that the realistic outcome was probably not an end to drone attacks inside Afghanistan. I assume we can also add other covert missions. Keep your eyes on ongoing talks about access to air bases in Uzbekistan.Report
Herman Cain! Why hast thou forsaken us?Report
Yea but technically if we get everyone out first then we can to push the reset button on the war so rather than this war stretching into year 21 it instead becomes year 1 of War 2.0.Report