Kabul airport gates closed after deadly bombings, crowds cleared
Darpan News Desk IANS, 27 Aug, 2021 10:30 AM
Kabul, Aug 27 (IANS) All the gates of the Kabul airport were closed on Friday following the deadly twin bombings a day earlier that killed 90 people, including 13 US personnel, and the crowds outside have been cleared, a witness said.
"I drove a group of people to the airport early morning. We failed to reach the airport as Taliban soldiers did not allow vehicles to approach the airport, I drove them back to their home," a cab driver Mohammad Quraishi told Xinhua news agency.
On Thursday evening, a suicide bombing rocked a gate of the airport where a crashing crowd was waiting for evacuation flights, and later another explosion hit the nearby Baron Camp, a former coalition base.
The ensuing gunfight lasted for hours, according to reports.
"The coalition forces and a group of Afghan security forces who remained in the airport after Taliban took over shut all gates, including the main gate, and no crowd was seen as I saw from long distance," Quraishi said.
Besides the victims, over 150 people were also injured in the deadly attacks, for which the extremist Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility.
Dozens of evacuation flights were conducted during Thursday night and early Friday.
Nearly 6,000 US troops have been deployed at the Kabul airport to secure the airlifting operation since the Taliban's takeover of the city on August 15.
In his first comments on Kashmir, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid has said that Pakistan and India should sit together to resolve all their outstanding issues because both are neighbours and their interests are linked to each other.
The Haqqani network also established close ties with Pakistan's powerful yet notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which provided it weapons, training, and financial support.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the summit, and France's Emmanuel Macron were among those calling for an extension in order to more fully evacuate all foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans who helped the Americans and the NATO allies before the country's recent fall to the Taliban.
The Pentagon promptly announced it will press ahead with plans to require members of the military to get vaccinated amid the battle against the extra-contagious delta variant. Louisiana State University likewise said it will demand its students get the shot.
The situation at the Kabul airport has remained tense ever since the Taliban fighters swept into Kabul without encountering any resistance, and gained full control over the Afghan capital within a few hours on August 15.
Barrons, a Dow Jones & Company publication, said that tensions in the "Middle East have the potential to lift prices." It noted that earlier JP Morgan had predicted that oil prices could touch $80 a barrel with rising demand and constraint supply.
