20 Indians Still Stuck in Afghanistan; the US ‘Has Capacity’ to Evacuate Remaining 300 Citizens.
The United Nations Security Council may release its resolution on Afghanistan today, sources told CNN-News18. Meanwhile, the United States has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300 U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline. Senior administration officials said, as rocket fire in Kabul and another U.S. drone strike against suspected Islamic State militants underscored the grave threat in the war’s final days.
Rockets were rushed into the Afghan capital on Monday as the United States raced to complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan. With the evacuation of civilians all but over and terror attack fears high.
A deadline has been set by President Joe Biden that all the military forces will be withdrawn. The return of the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, which was toppled in 2001 but took back power a fortnight ago, triggered an exodus of terrified people aboard US-led evacuation flights. Those flights, which took more than 114,000 people out of Kabul airport, will officially end on Tuesday when the last of the thousands of American troops pull out.
The United States is investigating whether civilians may have been killed in an air strike it launched to destroy a car laden with explosives in the Afghan capital Kabul, a spokesman for US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today,” Captain Bill Urban, a CENTCOM spokesman, said in a statement. “still assessing the results of this strike, which we know disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat to the airport,”
“We know that there were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehiclle. Indicating a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties,” Urban continued. “It is unclear what may have happened, and we are investigating further. “We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” he said. The US air strike came after a suicide bomber from the Islamic State group on Thursday. US troops stopping huge crowds of people from entering the airport as they try to flee the new Taliban regime.
13 US service personnel have died in the attack. The car that was destroyed by the US strike had been headed for Kabul’s airport, a Taliban spokesman had said earlier Sunday.
About 114,000 people have been evacuated since August 15, when the Taliban swept back into power. The American withdrawal from Afghanistan is due to be completed by Tuesday.
According to a joint statement issued by Britain, the United States, and other countries, the Taliban will allow all foreign nationals. Afghan citizens with travel authorization from another country to leave Afghanistan.
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Image Credit: News 18
