American forces launched a drone strike in Kabul on Sunday that killed a suicide car bomber suspected of preparing to attack the airport, US officials said on Friday. The day also saw another explosion near the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul three days after ISIS-Khorasan executed a series of deadly blasts. The rocket hit a residential house near the airport in Kabul’s 11th security district on Sunday afternoon, according to Kabul police chief Rashid. According to The Afghanistan Times, six people including a child were killed and some others were injured.
As for the drone strike, it was the second carried out by US forces in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber struck the airport on Thursday, killing more than a hundred people, including 13 US troops. One US official said that Sunday’s strike was carried out by an unmanned aircraft and that secondary explosions following the strike showed the vehicle had been carrying a “substantial amount of explosive material.”
US President Joe Biden had warned on Saturday that the situation on the ground in Kabul remained extremely dangerous, and that his military chiefs had told him another militant attack was highly likely within the next 24-36 hours.
American officials had said that they were particularly concerned about the local affiliate of Islamic State (ISIS-K) attacking the airport as American troops depart, in particular the threat from rockets and vehicle-borne explosives.
Sunday’s drone strike took place as Biden headed to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor the U.S. service members killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing.
On Friday the U.S. military launched a drone strike that it said targeted ISIS-K militants in Nangarhar Province, east of Kabul, killing two of the group’s planners and wounding a third.
Despite Biden’s vow to go after the perpetrators of Thursday’s attack, U.S. officials have cautioned that beyond a symbolic act or limited operation, the United States could in fact do little to degrade ISIS-K.
Meanwhile, the Taliban on Sunday said that Washington will have no right to attack the country after 31 August, following US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, Geo News reported.
The Taliban-led government will stop any such attack in Afghanistan after 31 August, said Suhail Shaheen, spokesperson for the group’s political office. This statement comes as the US and foreign forces are set to complete military withdrawal after two decades of war.