KABUL: Evacuation flight from Afghanistan continued with a new urgency on Friday, the day after two suicide bombings target thousands of despair escape from the Taliban takeover.
The US said the next attack was estimated to be expected ahead of Tuesday’s deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending the longest war of America.
Kabul residents said several flights took off Friday morning, while the recording distributed by the local Tolo TV correspondent showed an anxious crowd outside the airport as usual.
Thursday’s bombing near Kabul International Airport killed at least 60 Afghan troops and 13 US troops, said Afghanistan officials, on the most deadly day for US forces in Afghanistan since August 2011.
In emotional speech, President Joe Biden blamed Afghanistan affiliates of the Islamic group.
, far more radical than the Taliban guerrillas who seized power less than two weeks ago.
“We will save Americans; We will issue our Afghan ally, and our mission will continue,” Biden said.
But even though there was strong pressure to extend the deadline on Tuesday, he had quoted the threat of a terrorist attack as an excuse to keep his plan.
Taliban, again controlled Afghanistan two decades after they were overthrown in the US-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks, insisted on deadlines.
Trump’s administration in February 2020 crashed into an agreement with the Taliban calling for it to stop attacks on Americans in exchange for the removal of all US forces and contractors in May; Biden was announced in April, he will issue it in September.
While the US on Thursday said more than 100,000 people had been evacuated safely from Kabul, as many as 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans struggled to go in one of the biggest airlift history.
General Frank McKenzie, the head of the US Central Command who oversaw the evacuation, on Thursday said around 5,000 people were waiting for flights on the airfield.
Scenes at the airport, with people standing knees in waste and families offer documents and even small children against US forces behind the razor wire, have been horrified throughout the world who continue to escape.
But the opportunity faded quickly for many people.
Some US allies said they ended the evacuation effort, some to give us time to complete the evacuation work before getting 5,000 troops on Tuesday.
England said Friday his evacuation from Afghanistan would end in a few hours, and the main British processing center for the qualified Afghanistan was closed.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News there will be evacuation flights “eight or nine” on Friday, and they will be the last.
British troops will leave for the next few days.
The Spanish government said it had ended evacuation operations.
Thousands of countless Afghans, especially those who work with the US and other Western countries, are now hiding from the Taliban, afraid of retaliation even though there is a full amnesty offer.
The militant group has claimed to have become more moderate since its hard government from 1996 to 2001, when most of them limit women to their homes, banning television and music and hold public executions.
But Afghans in Kabul and elsewhere have reported that some Taliban members limit the girls from school and go to the door to look for Westerners.
Nobody knows how effective the Taliban will fight Sunni’s extremists is, which has a relationship with affiliate groups that are more famous in Syria and Iraq and have carried out a series of brutal attacks in Afghanistan, especially targeting their Shia Muslim minorities.
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