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.
It is not clear, however, whether any of the passports under development will be accepted broadly around the world, and the result could be confusion among travellers and disappointment for the travel industry.
As details emerge, many members of the Asian American community see the Georgia killings as a haunting reminder of harassment and assaults that have been occurring from coast to coast.
Norway, Iceland, Bulgaria, Thailand, and Congo soon followed suit. On Saturday, Norwegian authorities reported that four people under age 50 who had gotten the AstraZeneca vaccine had an unusually low number of blood platelets.
In a statement, the U.N. health agency said “the ample data from large clinical trials” shows the J&J vaccine is effective in adult populations. The emergency use listing comes a day after the European Medicines Agency recommended the shot be given the green light across the 27-country European Union.
Denmark's Health Authority said its decision was “based on a precautionary principle” and that one person who developed a blood clot after vaccination had died.
Dr. Anita Thomas, executive vice-president and provost at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, said watching Meghan’s interview with Winfrey was emotional.
