[At the airport and in the streets,
the U.S. military and the Taliban tried to exert what authority they could.
Militants with Kalashnikov rifles kept crowds farther away from the airport’s
entrance gates, guarding checkpoints with trucks and at least one Humvee parked
in the roads. The American military resumed evacuation flights, and the White
House said early Friday that 12,500 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan
in the previous 24 hours, despite the attacks.]
By Eric Schmitt, Zia
ur-Rehman, Jim Huylebroek, Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed
“U.S. military forces conducted an
over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,”
Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said in a statement,
referring to the
Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, also known as Islamic State
Khorasan, which has claimed responsibility for the Thursday attack.
“The unmanned airstrike occurred in
the Nangahar province of Afghanistan,” Captain Urban said. “Initial indications
are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties.”
The attack at the airport was one
of the deadliest in the nearly two decades since the U.S.-led invasion. American
officials believe “another terror attack in Kabul is likely,” the White House
press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on Friday afternoon. “The threat is ongoing
and it is active. Our troops are still in danger.”
A U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan
warning said U.S. citizens at the Kabul airport “who are at the Abbey gate,
East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave
immediately.”
Less than a day after the attack,
crowds on Friday sought once again to reach the airport, their desperation to
flee the Taliban blending with grief at the enormous scale of the violence.
At the airport and in the streets,
the U.S. military and the Taliban tried to exert what authority they could.
Militants with Kalashnikov rifles kept crowds farther away from the airport’s
entrance gates, guarding checkpoints with trucks and at least one Humvee parked
in the roads. The American military resumed evacuation flights, and the White
House said early Friday that 12,500 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan
in the previous 24 hours, despite the attacks.
The waiting crowds, many standing
by buses with bags at their sides, numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands
of previous days. An estimated hundreds of thousands remain in the country who
are desperate for escape from the Taliban rule of Afghanistan, but very few
appeared to be getting to the airport gates on Friday.
The airport itself appeared to be
largely, if not entirely, locked down. At the airport’s southern and eastern
gates, Taliban guards told a reporter that no one was allowed to go near the
airport and that all entrance gates were closed. About 5,400 people remained
inside waiting evacuation, the Pentagon said Friday.
The grisly scenes on Thursday, when
children were among those killed in the crowds, illustrated the intense danger
for those braving the high-risk journey to the airport.
On Friday, the U.S. military
revised its account of what happened at the airport a day earlier, with Maj.
Gen. William Taylor of the Joint Staff saying, “we do not believe that there
was a second explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, that it was one suicide
bomber.” But many witnesses reported hearing two blasts.
The death toll rose sharply Friday
as health officials revised upward the number of bombing victims, which did not
include the 13 U.S. service members killed and 15 wounded. The figure of 170
dead and at least 200 wounded was supported by interviews with hospital
officials, who requested anonymity because the Taliban had told them not to
speak with the media. They said some of the dead civilians were Afghan
Americans, who had U.S. citizenship.
Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who
has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also
the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has
shared three Pulitzer Prizes. @EricSchmittNYT
Najim Rahim is a reporter in the
Kabul, Afghanistan, bureau. @NajimRah
Fahim Abed
is a reporter in the Kabul, Afghanistan, bureau. @fahimabed