Afghanistan: Joe Biden warns another terrorist attack is 'highly likely' at Kabul Airport


29-08-2021 02:31 PM

Ammon News - Boris Johnson announced that the UK's mission to get out of Afghanistan has now ended.

Joe Biden has warned another terrorist attack at Kabul Airport is "highly likely" following the ISIS-K blast earlier this week, dailyrecord reported.

US President has vowed to keep up air strikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members.

The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of US forces at the airport, now numbering fewer than 4,000, had begun their final withdrawal ahead of Biden's deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday, according to dailyrecord.

After getting briefed on a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of the so-called Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate early on Saturday, Biden said the extremists can expect more.

"This strike was not the last," Biden said in a statement.

"We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay."

He paid tribute to the "bravery and selflessness" of the American troops executing the hurried airlift of tens of thousands from Kabul airport, including the 13 US service members who were killed in Thursday's suicide bombing at an airport gate.

The evacuation proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another attack by IS.

The State Department issued a new security alert early on Sunday morning Kabul time instructing people to leave the airport area immediately "due to a specific, credible threat".

"Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours," Biden said, adding that he has instructed them to take all possible measures to protect their troops, who are securing the airport and helping bring onto the airfield Americans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule.

The remains of the 13 American troops were on their way to the United States, the Pentagon said.

Their voyage marked a painful moment in a nearly 20-year war that cost more than 2,400 US military lives and is ending with the return to power of a Taliban movement that was ousted when US forces invaded in October 2001.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK departure from Afghanistan was "the culmination of a mission unlike anything we've seen in our lifetimes".

The final UK troops and diplomatic staff were airlifted from Kabul on Saturday, drawing to a close Britain's 20-year engagement in Afghanistan and a two-week operation to rescue UK nationals and Afghan allies.

Ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Laurie Bristow, who had been processing those fleeing the country at the airport until the last moment, was among those who landed at RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire on Sunday morning.

And it brought to a close Operation Pitting, believed to be the largest evacuation mission since the Second World War.

In a video uploaded to Twitter on Sunday morning, Johnson praised the more than 1,000 military personnel, diplomats and officials who took part in the operation in Afghanistan.

He said: "UK troops and officials have worked around the clock to a remorseless deadline in harrowing conditions.

"They have expended all the patience and care and thought they possess to help people in fear for their lives.

"They've seen at first-hand barbaric terrorist attacks on the queues of people they were trying to comfort, as well as on our American friends.

"They didn't flinch. They kept calm. They got on with the job.

"It's thanks to their colossal exertions that this country has now processed, checked, vetted and airlifted more than 15,000 people to safety in less than two weeks."

Shortly afterwards, Sir Laurie arrived on one of the last flights carrying UK military and civilian personnel on their final homeward leg back from Afghanistan.




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