Scores killed in twin blasts at Kabul airport

No Pinoy casualty, says DFA

- Roy C. Mabasa

KABUL (AFP/Xinhua) — Twin suicide bombs ripped through crowds outside Kabul airport on Thursday, killing at least 85 people including 13 US troops and deepening panic in the final days of an already frenzied evacuation effort from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The bombings, claimed by the Islamic State group, left scenes of carnage outside the airport where thousands of Afghans desperate to flee their country had massed despite a flurry of foreign government warnings – made just hours before – that a major terror attack was imminent.

The first explosion struck the north gate, a military gate of the Kabul airport. The second massive blast occured about 30 minutes later in Baron Camp, a military base near the airport used by coalition forces in the past.

A suicide bomb blast occurred in the middle of a crowd roughly at 6:00 p.m. local time outside a crowded gate of the airport, witness Abdul Wakil told Xinhua by phone.

People were shifting the wounded by hand carts and stretchers as the road leading to the airport's Abbey Gate was blocked in the past days.

The Taliban condemned the bombing outside Kabul airport, saying it happened at an area where US forces are responsible for security.

President Joe Biden, under enormous pressure over his administration's handling of the Afghan crisis, said the airlift would not be derailed and vowed to punish those responsible.

We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay, he said.