8/30/21 - More Rockets Fired at Kabul

The U.S. is in the final stages of evacuations in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON — (AP) - The U.S. military says five rockets targeted the Kabul airport on Monday morning and U.S. forces on the airfield used a defensive system to intercept them.

Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command, said there were no U.S. casualties. He said U.S. forces used a defensive weapon known by the acronym C-RAM — a Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System — in response to the attack.

It targeted the rockets in a whirling hail of ammunition, Urban said. The system has a distinct, drill-like sound that echoed through the city at the time of the attack.

He said the Kabul airfield remains operational as the evacuation continued on Monday. Other details were not immediately available.

A U.S. official said the airstrike Sunday hit a vehicle that included a suicide bomber.

Last Thursday 13 U.S. troops lost their lives following a suicide bombing near the airport and a number of others were wounded.  Our flags will continue to fly at half-staff today to remember the lives lost.

Meanwhile, Ross Wilson, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul now working out of the airport, insisted that evacuations remain ongoing Monday. He dismissed as false claims that American citizens have been turned away or were denied access to the Kabul airport by U.S. Embassy staff or American troops.

“This is a high-risk operation. Claims that American citizens have been turned away or denied access to HKIA by Embassy staff or US Forces are false,” he said in a message on Twitter, using eh acronym for the Kabul airport. He did not elaborate.

The diplomat, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, announced on Twitter that the state-run Pakistan International Airlines will serve as a humanitarian air bridge for essential supplies to Afghanistan, in coordination with international agencies.

He thanked PIA, as the carrier is known, for the supplies. It wasn’t immediately cleat when the airlift would begin.

The latest development comes days after WHO sought Pakistan’s help in airlifting medical supplies to Afghanistan following last week’s deadly attack on the Kabul airport.

Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, fell to the Taliban on Aug. 14, a day before Kabul.

Another plane carrying 150 Afghans who fled their homeland fearing the Taliban takeover arrived in Albania early on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said.

The new arrivals brought the total number of Afghans brought to this Balkan country to 607. A ministry statement said the plane had come from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Albania has accommodated most of the Afghans in hotels and some of them temporarily at the students’ campus in the capital of Tirana.

The government has said it may house up to 4,000 Afghans for at least a year before they move to the United States for final settlement.

Pakistan’s military says suspected militants fired across the border from Afghanistan at a military post in northwestern Pakistan, killing two soldiers.

The military says the cross-border attack took place on Sunday, in the district of Bajur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It said Pakistani troops returned fire “in a befitting manner,” killing some attackers and wounding others.

The military said Pakistan strongly condemns the use of Afghan soil by “terrorists for activities against Pakistan” and expects the current and future authorities in Afghanistan not to allow such activities.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and the Pakistani military provided no further details. Pakistan and Afghanistan have long accused one another of harboring militants fighting against the other’s government.

The two share an internationally recognized border known as the Durand Line, which was drawn in the 19th century when the British dominated South Asia. Kabul has never recognized the boundary.