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Afghanistan Live Updates: U.S. Launches Retaliatory Airstrike and Warns of Airport Threat
Thecounterterrorism operation targeted the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, which has claimed responsibility for Thursday's deadly attack at the airport. The U.S. military said that it had killed its target.
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Aug. 27, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ET3 minutes ago
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Afghanistan Live Updates: U.S. Launches Retaliatory Airstrike and Warns of Airport Threat
Thecounterterrorism operation targeted the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, which has claimed responsibility for Thursday's deadly attack at the airport. The U.S. military said that it had killed its target.
The U.S. launches a reprisal strike and warns Americans to leave the Kabul airport immediately.
A view of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, where the U.S. targeted an ISIS planner after the attack near the Kabul airport on Thursday. The U.S. has previously targeted the caves ISIS uses in the region.
Aview of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, where the U.S. targeted an ISIS planner after the attack near the Kabul airport on Thursday. The U.S. has previously targeted the caves ISIS uses in the region.Credit...Ghulamullah Habibi/European Pressphoto Agency
TheU.S. military announced its first reprisal strike in Afghanistan since an attack on the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 other people, as U.S. officials again warned Americans to leave the airport because of security threats.
"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 on Friday, referring to the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, also known as Islamic State Khorasan, which has claimed responsibility for the Thursday attack.
"Theunmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan," Captain Urban said. "Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties."
Theattack at the airport was one of the deadliest in the nearly two decades since the U.S.-led invasion. American officials believe "anotherterror attack in Kabul is likely," the White House press secretary, JenPsaki, said on Friday afternoon. "The threat is ongoing and it is active. Our troops are still in danger."
The U.S. airstrike followed President Biden's searing remarks from the White House on Thursday, when he pledged to "hunt down" the terrorists who claimed credit for the bombing.
"Tothose who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes Americaharm, know this: We will not forgive," Mr. Biden said, using language that had grim echoes of warnings President George W. Bush made after theterrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
AU.S. Embassy in Kabul warning said U.S. citizens at the airport "who are at the Abbey gate, East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave immediately."
Two key U.S. allies, Britain and France,announced Friday that they were winding down or had already ended theirevacuations of the airport, which crowds on Friday sought once again toreach as they desperately tried to flee the Taliban despite the loomingthreat of another attack. French officials blamed the lack of security on the "rapid disengagement of the American forces."
Atthe airport and in the streets, the U.S. military and the Taliban triedto 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. TheAmerican military resumed evacuation flights, and White House officialssaid early Friday that 12,500 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in the previous 24 hours, despite the attacks.
Thewaiting crowds, many standing by buses with bags at their sides, numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands of previous days. Hundreds of thousands desperate to escape Taliban rule are estimated to remain inthe country, but very few appeared to be getting to the airport gates on Friday.
The airport itself appearedto 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 saidFriday.
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 donot 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.
America's tumultuousexit from Afghanistan has dragged down Mr. Biden's approval ratings, and the bombing on Thursday will surely open him up to political criticism. But it is unclear what the damage will be to his presidency in the long term, as he exits a war that most Americans want out of as well.
- Eric Schmitt, Zia ur-Rehman, Jim Huylebroek, Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed
A heavily fortified C.I.A. base in Kabul has been destroyed.
Afghans outside Kabul's airport on Thursday. While most Afghans trying to escape the city have gone to the airport, the C.I.A. has shepherded hundreds of others, at particular risk of reprisals, to a base it destroyed on Thursday.
Afghansoutside Kabul's airport on Thursday. While most Afghans trying to escape the city have gone to the airport, the C.I.A. has shepherded hundreds of others, at particular risk of reprisals, to a base it destroyed on Thursday.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Acontrolled detonation by American forces on Thursday that was heard throughout Kabul destroyed Eagle Base, the final C.I.A. outpost outside the Kabul airport, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Blowingup the base was intended to ensure that any equipment or information left behind would not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
EagleBase, first started early in the war at a former brick factory, had been used throughout the conflict and grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center that was used to train the counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan's intelligence agencies.
Thoseforces were some of the only ones to keep fighting as the government collapsed, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence-related matters.
"Theywere an exceptional unit," said Mick Mulroy, a former C.I.A. officer who served in Afghanistan. "They were one of the primary means the Afghan government has used to keep the Taliban at bay over the last twenty years. They were the last ones fighting and they took heavy casualties."
Local Afghans knew littleabout the base. The compound was extremely secure and designed so it would be all but impossible to penetrate. Walls reaching 10 feet high surrounded the site and a thick metal gate slid open and shut quickly toallow cars inside.
Once the cars got inside, they still had to clear three outer security checkpoints where the vehicle would be searched, and documents would be screened before being allowed inside the base.
In the early years of the war, a junior C.I.A. officer was put in charge of the Salt Pit, a detention site near Eagle Base.There the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, stripped of his clothing and shackled to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A C.I.A. board recommended disciplinary action but was overruled.
Aformer C.I.A. contractor said that leveling the base would have been noeasy task. In addition to burning documents and crushing hard drives, sensitive equipment needed to be destroyed so it did not fall into the hands of the Taliban. Eagle Base, the former contractor said, was not like an embassy where documents could be quickly burned.
Thedestruction of the base had been planned and was not related to the massive explosion at the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 American service members. But the detonation, hours after the airport attack, alarmed many people in Kabul, who feared it was another terrorist bombing.
The official American mission in Afghanistan to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies is set to end next Tuesday, Aug. 31. The Taliban have said that the evacuation effort must not be prolonged, and Biden administration officials say that continuing past that date would dramatically increasethe risks to both Afghans and U.S. troops.
- Julian E. Barnes and Farnaz Fassihi
‘We're nearing the end.' The British will soon stop evacuating Afghan allies from Kabul.
British citizens boarded a military plane for evacuation from Kabul airport, on August 16.
British citizens boarded a military plane for evacuation from Kabul airport, on August 16.Credit...UK Mod Crown Copyright 2021, via Reuters
Britishofficials at Kabul's airport stopped accepting new evacuation requests from Afghan allies on Friday and began preparing to fly out some 1,000 British troops and civilian officials ahead of the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline set by the United States.
"We'renearing the end," Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, the chief of Britain's air staff, said in a telephone interview. "Overnight, we closed the doors at our processing center."
Bythe time the last several hundred Afghans now inside the airport board evacuation flights from Hamid Karzai International Airport, Britain willhave flown about 15,000 people to safety in the operation, the air chief said. About 4,500 are British passport and visa holders, and the rest are Afghans who served alongside British troops in Afghanistan, andtheir families, he said.
Britain and the United States are closely synchronizing their operations, so the British shift to prioritizing flights carrying out its troops and government civilians foreshadows the same transition that the American military is likely to make over the weekend.
Earlier Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to continue working to help more Afghans leave after the deadline.
"Ofcourse, as we come down to the final hours of the operation there will sadly be people who haven't got through, people who might qualify," he said. "What I would say to them is that we will shift heaven and earth to help them get out, we will do whatever we can in the second phase."
Anotherkey ally, France, announced Friday that the country had ended its evacuations in Afghanistan. In a statement, the foreign and defense ministers blamed the lack of security on the "rapid disengagement of theAmerican forces." They said France would continue trying to assist Afghans who want to leave.
- Eric Schmitt
Former Afghan government officials say Taliban fighters are searching for them.
Members of the Taliban at a checkpoint last week in Kabul.
Members of the Taliban at a checkpoint last week in Kabul.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Talibanfighters have continued to search for officials of Afghanistan's formergovernment, causing fear among Kabul residents, even after the group declared a general amnesty for those once in power when they entered thecapital nearly two weeks ago, former officials say.
"Thisis the eighth time that the Taliban came to my home in Kabul, searched for me and have taken my private vehicle, and directly threatened my children," Halim Fidai, a former official who served as an adviser to the president and as a governor of eastern Khost Province, said on Twitter on Thursday.
Fearingretribution from the Taliban, thousands of employees of the collapsed Afghan government, interpreters for U.S. and NATO forces, civil society activists and journalists have flooded Kabul's airport in recent days along with their families in a desperate attempt to flee the country. Tens of thousands have been evacuated by the U.S. and other Western countries, but the area around the airport has grown increasingly perilous, with a terrorist attack on Thursday killing dozens.
AhmadullahWaseq, the deputy of Taliban's culture committee, rejected reports thatthe Taliban had conducted house-to-house searches in Kabul. He said the "allegation" made by Mr. Fidai would be investigated.
Mr.Waseq noted that Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban's reclusive leader, had ordered a general amnesty. "We assure all members of security forces and former officials to stay in their homeland and that they are safe in their houses," he said.
Hesaid that criminals, introducing themselves as Taliban members, had carried out searches and armed robberies, and that some of them had beendetained by the Taliban.
People on the ground tell a different story.
BismillahTaban, the head of the Interior Ministry's police criminal investigation unit under President Ashraf Ghani, said his assistant had handed over all of the equipment and weapons he had in his possession tothe Taliban a day after they entered Kabul.
But the Taliban are still looking for him.
"TheTaliban detained my former aide in Kabul, held him for five hours, tortured him to force him reveal my hiding place," he said in a phone call from an undisclosed location. "I don't believe their promise of general amnesty. They killed one of my colleagues after they took over the government. They will kill me, too, if they find me."
Despitethe Taliban's efforts to reassure Afghans that the group has evolved and will not rule with the violence that marked its time in power in the1990s, former government officials and people who worked with the United States and NATO allies are still worried. Many have either been living in hiding or trying to flee the country.
Therehave also been reports of attacks by the Taliban on journalists, including one on Monday in which Tolo News journalists and administrators described how the Taliban beat one of the channel's reporters in Kabul.
Mr. Waseq said that the fighter who had beat the journalist was identified and that a criminal case had been opened against him. "He will soon face trial," hesaid.
- Sharif Hassan
He was a baby on 9/11. Now he's one of the last casualties of America's longest war.
Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, a U.S. Marine, was killed in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Thursday.
Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, a U.S. Marine, was killed in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Thursday.Credit...via the McCollum Family
AfterLance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, 20, landed in Afghanistan with his Marine unit, his father, Jim, began checking his phone for a little green dot. Mr. McCollum had not been able to talk with his son, but the green dot next to Rylee's name on a messaging app meant that he was online. That he was still OK.
When news came that asuicide bomber killed 13 American service members outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday, Mr. McCollum checked again for the dot. His son was on his first overseas deployment, had gotten married recently, and was about to become a father. Mr. McCollum messaged his son: "Hey man, you good?"
But the green dot was gone.
"In my heart yesterday afternoon, I knew," Mr. McCollum said.
OnFriday, Lance Corporal McCollum became one of the first American victims to be publicly identified in the attack that also killed at least 170 Afghans. It was the highest U.S. death toll in a single incident in Afghanistan in 10 years. His death was confirmed by his father and by the governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon.
Whilethe Department of Defense has not released an official accounting of the victims, their names began to emerge on Friday. They appeared in social media posts from family and friends and somber announcements fromthe high schools where the young men had played football or wrestled just a few years earlier.
Some of them, like Lance Corporal McCollum, who was born in February 2001, were still babies when the United States invaded Afghanistan. Others were notyet born. Now, they are among the last casualties of America's longest war.
Image
People outside of the airport in Kabul, after the explosion on Thursday.
People outside of the airport in Kabul, after the explosion on Thursday.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
LanceCorporal McCollum's unit had deployed from Jordan to Afghanistan to provide security and help with evacuations, his father said in a phone interview on Friday. He had been guarding a checkpoint when the explosion tore through the main gate where thousands of civilians have been clamoring to escape the country's new Taliban rulers.
"He was a beautiful soul," Mr. McCollum said from his home in Wyoming.
Mr.McCollum's fears for his son's fate were confirmed when two Marines knocked on the door of the family's home at 3:30 a.m. to deliver the news. Mr. McCollum said becoming a Marine had been his son's dream ever since he was 3 years old.
That night other families in communities large and small were getting the same grim news.
Inone small northern Ohio community where Maxton Soviak grew up playing football, his death left a "Maxton-sized hole" in the lives of the people who loved him, his sister Marilyn wrote in an Instagram post.
Mr.Soviak served as a Navy medic when he was killed, according to a statement from the Edison Local School District announcing his death. Mr. Soviak graduated from Edison High School in 2017, the district said.
"Everybodylooked to Max in tough situations," said Jim Hall, his high school football coach, who described Mr. Soviak as a deeply loyal friend. "He was energetic. He wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was a passionate kid. He didn't hold anything back."
Mr.Soviak's social media profile showed an exuberant young man charging into the world - diving off a rocky precipice, rock-climbing, hiking theGrand Canyon. "If the world was coming to an end, I don't wanna close my eyes without feeling like I lived," he wrote in one post.
OnFriday, Mr. Hall's phone rang with people calling to mourn and share memories, and one image of Mr. Soviak kept returning to Mr. Hall's mind.It was from a snowy regional playoff game a few years ago in which Mr. Soviak helped sack a quarterback to win the game.
Mr. Hall remembered watching Mr. Soviak celebrate on the field, exultant, snow swirling around him.
Atleast two of the slain service members were from California. They were identified by local law enforcement and a U.S. congressman as Hunter Lopez, 22, a Marine who is the son of two officers of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, a young martial arts champion from Norco, according to his social media accounts.
Hunter Lopez
Hunter LopezCredit...Riverside County Sheriff's Department, via Facebook
On Friday, Kareem Nikoui's mother, Shana Chappell, posted a photoon her Instagram account of her son with a broad smile, cradling his rifle amid the crowds of civilians and razor wire at the gate of the airport in Kabul. "This is the last picture my son sent me of himself. It was taken on Sunday. I know i am still in shock right now. I felt my soul leave my body as i was screaming that it can't be true! No mother, no parent should ever have to hear that their child is gone," she wrote in the post.
Some of the dead were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. On Thursday evening, as many families were being notified, the Marine base held a candlelight vigil.
LanceCorporal McCollum loved the mountains where he grew up but could not wait to join the Marines, his father said. Since he was a boy, he could not stand injustice and would stand up for bullied classmates. So on his18th birthday, he called his father from his school in Jackson Hole to ask him to come sign his enlistment papers.
"He wanted to get in there as quickly as he could," Mr. McCollum said.
Mr.McCollum said his son had been deeply patriotic and had, from a young age, loved going to Fourth of July and Memorial Day parades and learningabout the ceremonies surrounding the American flag. He was a successfulwrestler who graduated in 2019, school officials said.
"He'sthe most patriotic kid you could find," Mr. McCollum said. "Loved America, loved the military. Tough as nails with a heart of gold."
Flowersalong the entrance sign at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., on Thursday. Some of the dead were assigned to the Camp's 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.Credit...Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
RegiStone, a pastor whose son, Eli, was one of Lance Corporal McCollum's best friends, described him as fiercely devoted. The two young men always had each other's backs, he said, whether it was at bonfire parties in the Wyoming woods or in their decision to enlist in the Marines at about the same time.
"He wouldn't back down from anything," Mr. Stone said.
Mr.McCollum said it was wrenching to watch the chaos unfolding in Afghanistan after so many years of American military occupation and so many deaths.
"It kills me and pains methat we spent 20 years there, and all the lives that were lost there, including my son's. And we're back to square one," he said.
Hesaid he found some comfort in the fact that his son had died helping people - "doing good things," as Lance Corporal McCollum put it.
"I couldn't be more proud of him," his father said. "He's a hero."
Sheelagh McNeill and Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
- Jack Healy and Dave Philipps
Chaos and community mingle in a Kabul hospital.
A gunshot victim being transported to the Emergency NGO hospital in Kabul on Friday.
A gunshot victim being transported to the Emergency NGO hospital in Kabul on Friday. Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Thebombing outside Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday brought an almost unmanageable flood of victims to the Emergency N.G.O. Hospitalin Kabul.
"Last night was a disaster," Alberto Zanin, the hospital's medical coordinator, said in aninterview with The New York Times on Friday. "We are not used to casualty numbers this high. Our hospital is over capacity at the moment.We had to add extra beds."
The hospital received 62 victims from the attack, he said, 14 of whom were dead on arrival. Two others died almost immediately after arrival and four more died overnight. Thirty-four patients were admitted for treatment, and the situation was exacerbated by casualties from another explosion in Kote Sangi, a densely populated neighborhood southwest of the airport.
"One fatality came in, and one of the nurses working at the tent by the entrance, the first patient reception, realized it was a relative of his," Dr. Zanin said. "When that happened, there was a lot of panic, screaming. It was difficult to manage that."
Dr. Zanin said this was the worst attack he had experienced in the roughly four years he had worked at the hospital in Kabul.
"Alot of them had head injuries," he said of the victims. "There was alsosomething about the state of the people that arrived. They seemed shocked. Everyone was completely absent, not listening, not able to respond."
In the face of the catastrophe, the hospital's staff and members of the community came together. Many employees had gone home for the night when the attack happened, but returned to the hospital without having to be asked, Dr. Zanin said. The last surgery of the night was performed at 5 a.m. on Friday.
"A lot of people came to our gate to inquire about relatives. There was a lot of chaos," he said. "But there were also signs of humanity, of community. Many came to donate blood. We had Taliban coming to donate blood."
Oneof the wounded was Asadullah Hossaini, 31, a medical doctor who had been standing near the U.S. Marines who were killed when the explosion went off.
Mr. Hossaini said that he and his family - 15 people total - had fled about 90 miles west to Behsud, where they are from, when the Taliban entered Kabul. They are Hazaras, a predominantly Shia ethnic group that was brutally oppressed when the Taliban were in power a generation ago.
But when a cousin called to say he had an American visa and could get the family into the airport, they returned.
"Ihad a passport and my cousin had a U.S. visa," he said. "He wanted to transfer us to America because the situation here has become unacceptable to us. I saw on Facebook that Taliban fighters request young women to marry them. This is unacceptable. We have many young women in our family."
The family went to the airport on Wednesday but had to spend the night outside because the crowd was impenetrable, Mr. Hossaini said. On Thursday, they made their way closer to the airport gate. Even before the explosion, he said, people were packed together so tightly that a woman died from suffocation.
"I saw her die with my own eyes," he said.
Whenthe bomb went off, he was knocked unconscious. Two people put him in a wheelbarrow and pushed him to the main airport gate, from which a car took him to the hospital. He underwent surgery on his leg and back.
"Idon't know what happened to my family," he said. "I know my wife and mydaughter are outside the hospital. But I don't know what happened to the rest of them."
- Jim Huylebroek
With the airport blocked, Afghan refugees stream into Pakistan.
A satellite image of the crowd gathered at the Spin Boldak border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday.
A satellite image of the crowd gathered at the Spin Boldak border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday.Credit...Planet Labs
Pakistan has insisted that it will not accept any more refugees from Afghanistan. The refugees are coming anyway.
Thousandsof people have been streaming into Pakistan through a major southwestern border crossing since the Taliban took over Kabul two weeksago. While the evacuations from Kabul airport have drawn global attention, large numbers of people trying to flee the country have been gathering daily near Spin Boldak-Chaman, the only designated - and open - border crossing for refugees.
About 4,000 to 8,000 people crossed the border there in normal times. Since the Taliban seized Kabul, the number of Afghans entering Pakistan has jumped threefold, according to Pakistani officials and tribal leaders. They fear that the attacks at Kabul's airport will spur even more people to use the border crossing instead.
Otherborder crossings, like the one at Torkham, a site roughly 140 miles east of Kabul, have been closed. That leaves the southern crossing of Spin Boldak, which is roughly 70 miles southeast of Kandahar.
Oneresident of Parwan Province north of Kabul, surnamed Ali, traveled withhis family through Spin Boldak. They arrived at the Pakistani port cityof Karachi on Monday.
"The uncertainty and unemployment in Afghanistan have been forcing us to leave the country," Mr. Ali said.
Noofficial statistics about how many people recently entered Pakistan areavailable. An official at a ministry overseeing the flow of refugees said that the Pakistan government is allowing only Pakistani citizens, Afghan patients seeking medical treatment and people with proof of a right to refuge.
Pakistan has long hada complicated relationship with Afghanistan and their shared, porous border. The Taliban have long crossed back and forth, for example. But the Pakistan government has increasing worried about refugees pouring into the country from its troubled western neighbor.
In recent years it built up a fence 1,600 miles longwith Afghanistan mainly to regularize cross-border movement. It designated specific point, like Spin Boldak, where crossings were allowed.
AFGHANISTAN
Border crossing
PAKISTAN
Satellite imagery: Planet Labs•
By The New York Times
Photosand videos of crowds at the Spin Boldak border crossing have circulatedin recent days. But crowds were already a daily phenomenon, said the government official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. On a daily basis, the official said,people gather to cross for work, trade, medical treatment or to visit family on the other side of the border.
Risingrefugees may force the Pakistan government to take further action. Officials have said repeatedly said that they would not allow any new refugees to enter Pakistan's cities. The government is instead planning on establishing refugee camps near the border inside Afghanistan's territory.
Officially, about 1.4 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, making it one of the largest refugee populations in the world. A spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Council said as many as another one million may live there too.
- Zia ur-Rehman
The Kabul attack recalls the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, a decade ago.
The coffin of Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter was carried to a waiting car at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver in August 2011. He was among the 30 servicemen who died when a Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.
Thecoffin of Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter wascarried to a waiting car at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver in August 2011. He was among the 30 servicemen who died when a Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.Credit...Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post, via Associated Press
Justthree months after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the U.S. military endured its biggest single-day loss of life during its two-decade war inAfghanistan. On Aug. 6, 2011, insurgents shot down a transport helicopter, killing 30 Americans and eight Afghans.
TheTaliban, who claimed responsibility for the attack, had found an elite target: U.S. officials said that 22 of the dead were Navy Seal commandos, including members of Seal Team 6. Other commandos from that team had conducted the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Bin Laden in May of that year.
The helicopter, on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, an official said then. It was the second helicopter to be shot down by insurgents within two weeks.
Thedeadly attack, which came during a surge of violence that accompanied the beginning of a drawdown of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, showed how deeply entrenched the insurgency remained even far from its main strongholds in southern Afghanistan and along the Afghan-Pakistani border in the east.
The Tangi Valley traverses the border between Wardak and Logar Province, an area where security worsened over the years and brought the insurgency closer to the capital, Kabul. It was one of several inaccessible areas that becamehavens for insurgents.
President Barack Obama offered his condolences at the time to the families of the Americans and Afghans who died in the attack. "Their death is a reminderof the extraordinary sacrifice made by the men and women of our military and their families," he said.
President Biden echoed Mr. Obama's words after an attack by Islamic State Khorasan killed 13 U.S. service members.
"The lives we lost today were lives given in the service of liberty, the service of security and the service of others," Mr. Biden said.
- Lauren McCarthy
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A former Afghan finance minister is trying to influence the Taliban.
A lemonade seller in a market in Kabul last week.
A lemonade seller in a market in Kabul last week.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
OmarZakhilwal, a former Afghan finance minister, continues to walk to his office in downtown Kabul every day, even as he is meeting with Taliban officials, trying to nudge them toward what he calls a more "inclusive" government.
Both exercises are provingto be challenges. On his daily walk in the normally bustling and noisy Shar-e Naw neighborhood, once alive with street vendors and jostling pedestrians, there is now an unsettling silence. And so far his encounters with the Taliban have not yielded the results he is hoping for.
"It's awfully quiet," he said in aphone interview from Kabul on Friday. "It's really calm. You don't see many women out there. Not even close to the usual number. And the marketlooks depressed. You don't see people shopping. There are the juice sellers in Shar-e Naw, but not many people drinking juice."
"We'rein a very depressed economic situation," said Dr. Zakhilwal, an economist who was sharply critical of the government of President AshrafGhani in the days before it fell.
So far, the worst fears about the Taliban appear not to have been realized,Dr. Zakhilwal said. "By and large, their treatment of the population isnot as bad as expected," he said. "They are not very visible. You don'tsee a heavy presence of them in the city."
But "the mental security is not there," he said.
Alongwith other Afghan officials from previous governments, he has been meeting with Taliban representatives. One of the officials is his old boss, former President Hamid Karzai. All are hoping the Taliban will include former officials in their government. The signs so far are not encouraging.
"Now that they have takenthe whole thing, there might be temptations within them not to go for the type of inclusive government that would be the result of a politicalsettlement," Dr. Zakhilwal said.
A few appointments so far suggest that the Taliban are more interested in appointing from within their ranks than naming "professionals," he said,noting the Taliban's choice for acting head of the central bank: Haji Mohammad Idris, a member of the movement. News reports have indicated that Mr. Idris has no formal financial training.
"They haven't shown inclusivity in these temporary appointments," Dr. Zakhilwal said.
- Adam Nossiter
A baby born on an evacuation flight is named Reach, after the aircraft's call sign.
A C-17 military transport plane taking off from the international airport in Kabul.
A C-17 military transport plane taking off from the international airport in Kabul.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
TheAfghan parents of a baby born on a C-17 aircraft evacuating passengers to Germany named their daughter after the aircraft's call sign, a seniorU.S. general said this week.
"They named the little girl Reach, and they did so because the call sign of the C-17 aircraft that flew them from Qatar to Ramstein was Reach," Gen.Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command, said in a Pentagonnews conference on Wednesday.
The Afghan mother, who has not been named, went into labor and began experiencing complications on a flight leaving a base in Qatar for Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany on Saturday, the U.S. Air Force said on Twitter.
Inresponse, the C-17 - identified as Reach 828 in radio transmission - descended in altitude to increase air pressure inside the aircraft, "which helped stabilize and save the mother's life," the Air Force said.
Afterthe plane landed, medics boarded and helped deliver the baby in the cargo bay. A group of women had protected the mother's privacy with their shawls, Capt. Erin Brymer, a nurse who helped deliver the child, told CNN.
Bythe time they reached her, the woman had been "past the point of no return," she said. "That baby was going to be delivered before we could possibly transfer her to another facility."
Pictures released by the U.S. Air Force showed the woman being transported, shortly after her daughter's birth, from the aircraft to a nearby medical facility.
GeneralWolters said the baby was one of three - all in good condition - born to women who boarded evacuation flights out of Afghanistan. Two others were delivered at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a military hospitalin southern Germany.
"It's my dream to watch that young child, called Reach, grow up and be a U.S. citizen and fly United States Air Force fighters in our air force," General Wolters told reporters.
- Isabella Kwai
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How strong are ISIS and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan?
People arriving at a Kabul hospital for treatment on Thursday after the attack near the airport.
People arriving at a Kabul hospital for treatment on Thursday after the attack near the airport.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan hardly assures that all militants in the country are under their control.
Tothe contrary, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan - known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K - is a bitter, albeit much smaller, rival that has carried out dozens of attacks in Afghanistan this year against civilians, officials and the Taliban themselves.
Inrecent months as U.S. forces have been departing, about 8,000 to 10,000jihadi fighters from Central Asia, the North Caucasus region of Russia,Pakistan and the Xinjiang region in western China have poured into Afghanistan, a United Nations report concluded in June.
Mostare associated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, which are closely linked, but others are allied with ISIS-K, presenting a major challenge to the stability and security that the Taliban promise to provide.
Whileterrorism experts doubt that ISIS fighters in Afghanistan have the capacity to mount large-scale attacks against the West, many say that the Islamic State is now more dangerous, in more parts of the world, than Al Qaeda.
Created six years ago by disaffected Pakistani Taliban fighters, ISIS-K has vastly increased the pace of its attacks this year, the U.N. report said.
Thegroup's ranks had fallen to about 1,500 to 2,000 fighters - about half that of its peak in 2016 before U.S. airstrikes and Afghan commando raids took a toll, killing many of its leaders.
Butsince June 2020, the group has been led by an ambitious commander, Shahab al-Muhajir, who is trying to recruit disaffected Taliban fightersand other militants. ISIS-K "remains active and dangerous," the U.N. report said.
The Islamic State in Afghanistan has mostly been antagonistic toward the Taliban. At times the two groups have fought for turf, particularly in eastern Afghanistan, and ISIS recently denounced the Taliban's takeover of the country.Some analysts say that fighters from Taliban networks have even defected to join ISIS in Afghanistan, adding more experienced fighters to its ranks.
In general, Al Qaeda didnot maintain the same operational control over its affiliates as the Islamic State did, which may have given the latter an advantage, said Hassan Hassan, the co-author of a book about the Islamic State and the editor in chief of Newlines Magazine.
ForAl Qaeda, "it's like opening a Domino's franchise and you send someone out for quality control," he said. The Islamic State, on the other hand,would "take it one step further and appoint a manager from the originalorganization."
- Ben Hubbard, Eric Schmitt and Matthew Rosenberg
Aid groups work to find ways into Afghanistan amid the chaos in Kabul.
Displaced Afghan families receiving food distributed by the World Food Program in Kandahar last year.
Displaced Afghan families receiving food distributed by the World Food Program in Kandahar last year.Credit...M Sadiq/EPA, via Shutterstock
Humanitarianorganizations, which provide vital aid for millions in Afghanistan, arefinding alternative routes to ensure the continued delivery of suppliesto a country in crisis.
Desperate to keep channels into the country open, some have looked to alternatives toKabul's airport, where the deadly attack on Thursday and ongoing evacuations have hampered deliveries.
TheWorld Health Organization is working with Pakistan to enable an airliftof medical supplies to the northern Afghan city Mazar-i-Sharif. The hope is to bypass the security and logistics challenges that have prevented deliveries to Kabul's airport.
Mostof Afghanistan's 2,200 health facilities are functioning, said Richard Brennan, the W.H.O.'s regional emergencies director. But stocks of trauma kits to treat wounded people and of other medical supplies have dwindled to a few days' supply.
"Kabulairport is not an option for bringing in humanitarian supplies at this stage," he told reporters by video link from Cairo on Friday. "So we arelikely to use Mazar-i-Sharif airport, with our first flight going in the next few days."
Afghanistan's Civil Aviation Authority is not functioning, but Pakistan International Airlines is working with colleagues in Mazar-i-Sharif to ensure that cargo aircraft can land. The W.H.O. expected to bring in 20 to 30 tons of supplies on each flight, he noted.
Anotherchallenge has arisen, however. In the hours after the terrorist attack outside Kabul's airport, insurance costs for bringing a plane into Afghanistan have "skyrocketed to prices we have never seen before," Mr. Brennan said, although he said he expected that problem to be resolved and aircraft dispatched in the next two to three days.
TheWorld Food Program also expects to start an emergency airlift of food supplies to Afghanistan in the coming days, Mr. Brennan said. It warned this week that it could run out of supplies by September as it copes with the new reality of need on the ground.
"Humanitariancatastrophe awaits the people of Afghanistan this winter unless the global community makes their lives a priority," Anthea Webb, the organization's regional deputy director for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.
Atthis time of year, the program is typically positioning food stocks in warehouses across Afghanistan so that they can later be distributed whenwinter snows make some roads impassable.
Now, Ms. Webb said, limited funding and increased need mean that some supplies could run out.
- Nick Cumming-Bruce and Megan Specia
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Afghan migrants are trapped between Belarus and Poland.
A group of migrants from Afghanistan near Bialystok, Poland, close to the border with Belarus.
A group of migrants from Afghanistan near Bialystok, Poland, close to the border with Belarus.Credit...Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images
BRUSSELS - About 37 Afghan asylum seekers who left their country before the Taliban takeover this month have been stuck at the border between Belarus and Poland for two weeks without easy access to food, water or toilets, highlighting the European Union's struggle with migration.
WithPoland's governing Law and Justice party advertising its toughness on migrants, the government has sent troops to the area while building a variety of border fences. Belarus, which initially granted the asylum seekers visas, won't let them return from the border.
Variousopposition politicians in Poland, some of whom have visited the migrants, have criticized the inhumanity of the government's position while trying to avoid appearing to favor a policy of open borders.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday called on Poland to abide by its international obligations.
Butas European Union member states worry about a new flow of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, they are accusing Belarus, which is not a member, of weaponizing migrants to destabilize the bloc by encouraging them to cross the border.
Critics of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus say he has done the same thing on the borders of Lithuaniaand Latvia, apparently to retaliate against the European Union for its increasingly harsh sanctions against him and his government over fraudulent elections and a fierce crackdown on the opposition.
Belarus has denied that it is using migrants as a weapon against the European Union.
- Steven Erlanger
Devastation at one airport left many fearful at another across the world.
Sayed, right, was reunited with his wife, Kebria, and 6-month-old son, Mustafa, after they were released from the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Va., following their evacuation from Afghanistan.
Sayed,right, was reunited with his wife, Kebria, and 6-month-old son, Mustafa, after they were released from the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Va., following their evacuation from Afghanistan.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times
Hoursafter the deadly explosion outside the Kabul airport on Thursday, people were gathered at another airport back in the United States, anxiously awaiting the arrival of their loved ones from Afghanistan.
Manyexpressed grief over the attack, which killed at least 13 U.S. service members and scores more, and wondered what would happen to their relatives trapped in Afghanistan.
Baryalai,31, drove six hours from Brooklyn to Northern Virginia to help a friendpick up his wife and three children at Dulles International Airport. The two men arrived at 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and were still waiting for the family to be released from the processing center at 2 p.m.
Baryalai said he was "heartbroken" over the bombing and worried about his mother and brother, who are stuck in Afghanistan.
"They are home. I cannot send them to the airport because it's so bad," he said. "I cannot take the risk."
Joe,a 35-year-old hospitality worker who lives in Prince William County, Va., arrived at Dulles on Wednesday morning to pick up his wife and two daughters, who were returning from a visiting to Afghanistan for a wedding that was scheduled for Aug. 15, the day the Taliban took controlof Kabul.
He was still waiting on Thursday evening after spending the night sitting in a cafe and wandering around the airport. Although they had landed the day before at4:30 p.m., they were not able to get off the tarmac until 8 a.m. on Thursday.
Joe said that the attack was devastating but that he was not surprised it had occurred.
"The writing was on the wall," he said. "They've pretty much been announcing it, that threats have been active and present."
Holdinga bouquet of roses and two balloons, Joe said that he was relieved to get his wife and children out before the attack, but that he was worriedabout his wife's two sisters, who had not yet decided whether to risk their lives trying to get into the airport.
"They still haven't left the house," he said. "They're ready to leave, but they can't."
- Madeleine Ngo
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A former U.S. general makes it his mission to help vulnerable Afghans evacuate.
Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley, who retired from the military in 2008, and his wife, Jan, at a displaced persons camp in Kabul in March 2010.
Lt.Gen. John A. Bradley, who retired from the military in 2008, and his wife, Jan, at a displaced persons camp in Kabul in March 2010.Credit...Mahboob Shah
Since the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15,Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley, a retired Air Force officer, and his wife, Jan, have spent nearly every waking moment submitting reams of paperworkto various government agencies to help about 500 Afghans trying to evacuate the country.
So far, only one family they have helped has made it out.
"Nothing is working," Ms. Bradley said on Thursday. "It's a broken system, and it's heartbreaking."
The couple's frustrations reflect the broader challengesfacing those who once helped Americans and those who are now in turn trying to help those people. With President Biden's Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline fast approaching, many Afghans are desperate to get out.
In 2008 the Bradleys founded the Lamia Afghan Foundation, a nonprofit group, to help people in Afghanistan. Necessity has turned it into an impromptu refugee resettlement organization.
GeneralBradley served in the Air Force for more than four decades before he started the foundation, which he said had built seven schools for girls and d