Steph Deschamps / August 27, 2021
The Afghan Ministry of Health confirms to CNN that the new death toll is 90 and 160 injured in last night's attacks near Kabul airport. The double blast killed at least 13 U.S. soldiers and wounded 18 others, according to the Pentagon. It was the deadliest attack on the U.S. military in Afghanistan since 2011.
The attack, carried out by suicide bombers at dusk, while thousands of Afghans were still massed at the airport gates in the hope of being evacuated abroad, left scenes of chaos and desolation. Videos posted on social networks showed dozens of victims, dead or wounded, lying in the brackish waters of a sewage canal, surrounded by overwhelmed and helpless rescue workers. Men, women and children were running in all directions to get away from the site of the explosions.
Confronted with the most serious crisis since the beginning of his mandate and visibly shaken, U.S. President Joe Biden reacted by promising to hunt down and make the perpetrators of the attack pay. America will not be intimidated, he said in a martial tone.
This first deadly attack since the return of the Taliban to power on August 15 comes just a few days before the departure of American troops from the country, scheduled for August 31 after twenty years of fruitless war against the Islamists.
With tears in his eyes, Biden paid tribute to the soldiers killed, heroes engaged in a dangerous and selfless mission to save other lives, and said the United States would continue the evacuation.