Dozens of civilians, 12 US troops killed in Kabul airport blasts

Suicide bombers struck the crowded gates of Kabul airport with at least two explosions on Thursday, causing a bloodbath among civilians and US troops, and bringing a catastrophic halt to the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee.

Two US officials put the US death toll at 12 service members killed, making it one of the deadliest incidents for American troops of the entire 20-year war.

There was no complete toll of Afghan civilians but video images uploaded by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies of people killed in packed crowds outside the airport.

A watery ditch by the airport fence was filled with bloodsoaked corpses, some being fished out and laid in heaps on the canal side while wailing civilians searched for loved ones.

Several Western countries said the airlift of civilians was now effectively over, with the United States having sealed the gates of the airport leaving no way out for tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the West through two decades of war.

A Taliban official said at least 13 people including children had been killed in the attack and 52 were wounded, though it was clear from video footage that those figures were far from complete. One surgical hospital run by an Italian charity said it alone was treating more than 60 wounded.

The explosions took place amid the crowds outside the airport who have been massing for days in hope of escaping in an airlift which the United States says will end by Tuesday, following the swift capture of the country by the Taliban.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but US officials pointed the finger at Islamic State's Afghan affiliate, ISIS-Khorosan, which has emerged as enemies of both the West and of the Taliban.

A witness who gave his name as Jamshed said he went to the airport in the hope of getting a visa for the United States.

"There was a very strong and powerful suicide attack, in the middle of the people. Many were killed, including Americans," he said.

'COMPLEX ATTACK'

Zubair, a 24 year-old civil engineer, who had been trying for a nearly week to get inside the airport with a cousin who had papers authorizing him to travel to the United States, said he was 50 meters from the first of two suicide bombers who detonated explosives at the gate.

"Men, women and children were screaming. I saw many injured people – men, women and children – being loaded into private vehicles and taken toward the hospitals," he said. After the explosions there was gunfire.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Twitter: "We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US and civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate."

Taliban official Suhail Shaheen said there were two explosions in a crowded area managed by US forces. "We strongly condemn this gruesome incident and will take every step to bring the culprits to justice."

The Taliban did not identify the attackers, but a spokesman described it as the work of "evil circles" who would be suppressed once the foreign troops leave.

Washington and its allies had been urging civilians to stay away from the airport on Thursday, citing the threat of an Islamic State suicide attack.

In the past 12 days, Western countries have evacuated nearly 100,000 people, mostly Afghans who helped them. But they say many thousands more will be left behind following President Joe Biden's order to pull out all troops by Aug 31.

The last few days of the airlift will mostly be used to withdraw the remaining troops. Canada and some European countries have already announced the end of their airlifts, while publicly lamenting Biden's abrupt pullout.

AIRPORT DOORS 'CLOSED'

"The doors at the airport are now closed and it is no longer possible to get people in," Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said on Thursday.

"We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone," the acting chief of Canada's defense staff, General Wayne Eyre, told reporters.

Biden ordered all troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the month to comply with a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban negotiated by his predecessor Donald Trump. He spurned calls this week from European allies for more time.

The abrupt collapse of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan caught US officials by surprise and risks reversing gains, especially in the rights of women and girls, millions of whom have been going to school and work, once forbidden under the Taliban.

Biden has defended the decision to leave, saying US forces could not stay indefinitely. But his critics say the US force, which once numbered more than 100,000, had been reduced in recent years to just a few thousand troops, no longer involved in fighting on the ground and mainly confined to an air base. It was a fraction of the size of US military contingents that have stayed in places such as Korea for decades.

The US troops killed on Thursday were the first to die in action in Afghanistan in 18 months.

Violence from Islamic State creates a headache for the Taliban who have promised that their victory will bring peace to Afghanistan at last. Fighters claiming allegiance to Islamic State began appearing in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 2014 and have established a reputation for extreme brutality.

Since the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul, the United States and its allies have mounted one of the biggest air evacuations in history, bringing out about 95,700 people, including 13,400 on Wednesday, the White House said on Thursday.

The Taliban have encouraged Afghans to stay, while saying those with permission to leave will still be allowed to do so once foreign troops leave and commercial flights resume.

The Taliban's 1996-2001 rule was marked by public executions and the curtailment of basic freedoms. The group was overthrown two decades ago by US-led forces for hosting the al Qaeda militants who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Taliban have said they will respect human rights in line with Islamic law and will not allow terrorists to operate from the country.

-reuters-

Bombings kill at least 31 in northeast Syria city, state TV says

BEIRUT - Two bomb blasts claimed by Islamic State hit the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli near the Turkish border on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people and wounding 170 others, state television reported.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the blasts but gave a lower death toll of 14 killed and dozens wounded.

It said one of the bombs exploded near a security headquarters of the Kurdish administration that controls most of Hasaka province, where Qamishli is located.

State TV said one blast was from a car bomb and the other from a bomb on a motorbike.

It rolled footage purportedly from the scene of one blast, showing large-scale damage to buildings, vast amounts of rubble strewn across the road and plumes of smoke rising.

One explosion was so powerful it shattered the windows of shops in the Turkish town of Nusaybin, directly across the border. Two people were slightly hurt in Nusaybin, a witness said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had targeted Kurdish security forces.

The jihadist group, which is fighting against the Kurdish YPG militia and its allies in Hasaka and Aleppo provinces, has targeted Qamishli and the provincial capital, Hasaka city, in the past with bombing attacks.

A suicide blast killed six members of the Kurdish internal security force, known as the Asayish, in April. In July, an Islamic State suicide bomb killed at least 16 people in Hasaka.

The YPG captured large areas of territory from Islamic State in northeastern Syria last year and is involved in a U.S.-backed offensive that has advanced against the jihadists further west near the Turkish border. (Reporting by John Davison, additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo and Seyhmus Cakan in Diyarbakir, Turkey; editing by Larry King)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US condemns 'heinous' Istanbul attack, pledges support for Turkey

WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday condemned what it called the "heinous" bombing and gun attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport that left at least 32 people dead, pledging "steadfast" support for Turkey.

"Ataturk International Airport, like Brussels Airport which was attacked earlier this year, is a symbol of international connections and the ties that bind us together," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

"We remain steadfast in our support for Turkey, our NATO ally and partner, along with all of our friends and allies around the world, as we continue to confront the threat of terrorism."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the attack was "only the latest in a series of attacks aimed at killing and maiming innocent civilians."

"Such attacks will only reinforce our determination to work with the government of Turkey to counter the scourge of terrorism and support all those across the region who are working to promote peace and reconciliation," he said in a statement.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Istanbul airport suicide attack leaves multiple dead, injured

ISTANBUL - Three suicide bombers opened fire then blew themselves up in Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday, killing 36 people and wounding close to 150 in what Turkey's prime minister said appeared to have been an attack by Islamic State militants.

One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below, witnesses and officials said.

The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was one of the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and is struggling to contain the spillover from neighbouring Syria's civil war. It is also battling an insurgency by Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

Police fired shots to try to stop two of the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall, but they detonated their explosives, a Turkish official said.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said: "This attack, targeting innocent people is a vile, planned terrorist act."

"There is initial evidence that each of the three suicide bombers blew themselves up after opening fire," he told reporters at the airport. Yildirim said the attackers had come to the airport by taxi and that preliminary findings pointed to Islamic State responsibility.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials familiar with the early stages of investigations said Islamic State was at the top of the list of suspects even though there was no evidence yet.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the use of suicide bombers against "soft" targets was more typical of Islamic State than the other obvious suspect, Kurdish PKK militants, who generally attack official government targets.

One of the officials also said that, while Islamic State had recently stepped up attacks in Turkey, the group rarely claims responsibility because Turkey remains one of the main corridors for its fighters travelling from Europe to Syria and Iraq.

No group had claimed responsibility more than nine hours after the attack, which started around 9:50 p.m. local time (1850 GMT).

The attack bore similarities to a suicide bombing by Islamic State militants at Brussels airport in March that killed 16 people. A coordinated attack also targeted a rush-hour metro train, killing a further 16 people in the Belgian capital.

"THE ROOF CAME DOWN"

Most those killed were Turkish nationals but foreigners were also among the dead, a Turkish official said.

Ali Tekin, who was at the arrivals hall waiting for a guest, said the roof came down after an "extremely loud" explosion. "Inside the airport it is terrible, you can't recognise it, the damage is big," Tekin said.

A woman named Duygu, who was at passport control after arriving from Germany, said she threw herself to the floor after the explosion. "Everyone started running away. Everywhere was covered with blood and body parts. I saw bullet holes on the doors," she said.

Paul Roos, 77, said he saw one of the attackers "randomly shooting" in the departures hall from about 50 metres (55 yards) away. "He was wearing all black. His face was not masked," said Roos, a South African on his way home after a holiday in southern Turkey.

"We ducked behind a counter but I stood up and watched him. Two explosions went off shortly after one another. By that time he had stopped shooting," Roos told Reuters.

"He turned around and started coming towards us. He was holding his gun inside his jacket. He looked around anxiously to see if anyone was going to stop him and then went down the escalator ... We heard some more gunfire and then another explosion, and then it was over."

President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack should serve as a turning point in the global fight against militant groups.

"The attack, which took place during the holy month of Ramadan, shows that terrorism strikes with no regard for faith and values," he said in a statement.

The United States said it stood in solidarity with Turkey, its NATO ally, and that such attacks would only reinforce their joint determination. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need to intensify global efforts to combat extremism.

FLIGHTS RESUME

Ataturk is Turkey's largest airport and a major transport hub for travellers from around the world. Pictures posted on social media from the site showed wounded people lying on the ground inside and outside the international terminal.

A helicopter buzzed overhead as police evacuated the building. Dozens of passengers walked back down access roads with their luggage, trying to hail cabs. The U.S. embassy urged U.S citizens to avoid the area.

Authorities halted the takeoff of scheduled flights from the airport and passengers were transferred to hotels. Some flights to the airport were diverted, an official said, although Yildirim said later air traffic had resumed.

In the United States, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reacted to the explosions by putting armed, high-visibility patrols at the three main airports in the New York metropolitan region. The U.S. Federal Aviation authority also lifted an earlier order grounding U.S. flights to Ataturk.

Turkey has suffered a spate of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

In the most recent attack, a car bomb ripped through a police bus in central Istanbul during the morning rush hour, killing 11 people and wounding 36 near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor's office.

One person was killed on Dec. 23, 2015, when an explosion hit Istanbul's second airport, Sabiha Gokcen, located on the Asian side of the city. That attack was claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com