KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – A U.S. drone strike on Sunday struck a vehicle carrying “several suicides” by the Islamic State’s Afghan subsidiary before they could head for the ongoing military evacuation in the US. Kabul International Airport, U.S. officials said.
There were few initial details about the incident, as well as a rocket that attacked a neighborhood northwest of the airport and killed a child. The Taliban initially described the two strikes as separate incidents, although information about the two remained scarce and witnesses only heard a large explosion on Sunday in the Afghan capital.
The airstrike came as the United States ended a historic airlift that evacuated tens of thousands of people from Kabul International Airport, the scene of much of the chaos that ravaged the Afghan capital since that the Taliban took over two weeks ago. Following the suicide attack by an Islamic State affiliate that killed more than 180 people, the Taliban stepped up security around the airfield as Britain ended its evacuation flights on Saturday.
U.S. military cargo planes continued their routes to the airport on Sunday, ahead of Tuesday’s deadline set by President Joe Biden to withdraw all troops from America’s longest war. However, the Afghans left behind in the country are worried about the Taliban returning to their previous oppressive government, which fueled the recent death of a folk singer in the country by insurgents.
Two U.S. military officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about military operations, considered the airstrike successful and said the vehicle was carrying several bombers.
U.S. Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s central command, called the drone strike an action taken by “self-defense.” He said authorities continued to “assess the chances of civilian casualties, although we have no clues at this time.”
“We are confident that we have successfully achieved the goal,” Urban said. “Significant secondary explosions of the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid earlier said in a message to reporters that the US strike was directed by a suicide bomber while driving a vehicle loaded with explosives. Mujahid offered few more details.
The strike was the second in America since the airport’s suicide bombing. On Saturday, a strike in Nangarhar province killed a member of the Islamic State who was believed to be involved in planning attacks against the United States in Kabul.
ISIS Sunni extremists, who have links to the group’s best-known subsidiary in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of brutal attacks, mainly targeting the Shiite Muslim minority in Afghanistan, including an assault. in 2020 at a maternity hospital in Kabul in which they killed women and babies.
The Taliban have been fighting Islamic State militants in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have regained control nearly 20 years after being ousted in a U.S.-led invasion. The Americans entered after the 9/11 attacks, which Al Qaeda orchestrated while protected by the group.
The rocket attack attacked Kabul’s Khuwja Bughra neighborhood, said Rashid, the Kabul police chief who bears a name. The video obtained by The Associated Press after the attack showed smoke coming out of the building on the site a few kilometers (half a mile) from the airport.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but militants have fired rockets in the past.
Meanwhile, the family of a folk singer in northern Kabul claims that the Taliban killed him in unclear circumstances in recent days.
The execution of Fawad Andarabi reached the Andarabi Valley, for which he was named, an area of Baghlan Province, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kabul. The valley had seen unrest since the Taliban took control, and some districts in the area were under the control of militia fighters opposed to the Taliban government. The Taliban say they have since retaken these areas, although neighboring Panjshir in the Hindu Kush mountains remains the only one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces not under its control.
The Taliban previously went out to Andarabi’s house and searched him, even having tea with the musician, his son Jawad Andarabi told the AP. But something changed on Friday.
“He was innocent, a singer who only entertained people,” his son said. “He was shot in the head on the farm.”
His son said he wanted justice and a local Taliban council vowed to punish his father’s killer.
Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, told the AP that the insurgents would investigate the incident, but had no other details about the killing.
Andarabi played the ghichak, an inclined lute, and sang traditional songs about his birthplace, his people, and Afghanistan as a whole. An online video he showed it in a performance, sitting on a rug with the mountains of house surrounding him as he sang.
“There is no country in the world like my homeland, a proud nation,” he sang. “Our beautiful valley, the homeland of our great-grandparents.”
Karima Bennoune, the UN’s special rapporteur on cultural rights, wrote on Twitter that she had “great concern” over the Andarabi assassination.
“We call on governments to demand that the Taliban respect the #human rights of #artists,” he wrote.
Similarly, Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, denounced the murder.
“There is growing evidence that the Taliban of 2021 are the same as the intolerant, violent and repressive Taliban of 2001,” he wrote on Twitter. “20 years later. Nothing has changed on this front.
Also on Sunday, private banks across Afghanistan resumed operations. However, they limited the withdrawals to a maximum of the equivalent of $ 200 per day.
While some have complained about not being able to access their money, government employees say they have not been charged in the last four months. The Afghan traded between $ 90.5 and $ 1, continuing its depreciation, as billions of dollars in the country’s reserves remain frozen abroad.
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Akhgar reported from Istanbul, Baldor of Washington and Gambrell of Dubai, UAE.