According to reports, rockets were fired at Kabul airport hours after the US conducted airstrikes targetting an explosive-laden vehicle.
New Delhi: Hours, after the United States carried out airstrikes on Sunday in Kabul, Afghanistan, several rockets, were fired at the Afghan capital on Monday, AFP reported.
The sound of rockets hitting the capital was heard in the morning by AFP agents.
The rockets were fired from a car in the Khair Khana area towards Kabul airport, eyewitnesses said, according to TOLOnews.
No less than five rockets were fired at Kabul airport but were intercepted by a missile defense system, Reuters reported citing a US official.
The sound of the airport’s missile defense system could be heard by local residents, who also reported that shrapnel was falling on the street, suggesting that at least one rocket had been intercepted.
Smoke was seen rising above buildings in the north, where Hamid Karzai International Airport is located.
The incident comes as the United States rushes to complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the evacuation of civilians amid fear and terror in the war-torn country.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday set a deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, ending his country’s longest-running military conflict, which began in retaliation for the September 11 attacks.
Several Afghans, including children, were killed in Sunday’s drone strike as the United States claimed to have killed an Islamic State suicide bomber suspected of preparing to attack the capital’s airport, CNN reports.
The United States said on Sunday that its military forces carried out drone strikes on a vehicle of “several suicide bombers” in the Afghan capital Kabul and cleared an ISIS-K threat at Hamad Karzai International Airport where large numbers of people gathered to flee the war-torn country. A massive evacuation is currently underway at the airport by several countries to take back their populations safely.
The Associated Press reported, citing an anonymous Afghan official, that three children were killed in the drone strike on Sunday.
After such reports, the United States said it was investigating the possibility that civilians were killed in the airstrike and would be “deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent lives.”
“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties as a result of our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today. We are still evaluating the results of that strike, which we know disrupted an imminent threat from ISIS -K against the airport, “said Captain Bill Urban, a spokesperson for the command (CENTCOM), said in a statement.
