- The attack at Kabul Airport killed 72 people.
- Witnesses said the explosion caused panic.
- U.S. officials vowed to retaliate.
The death toll from two explosions at Kabul Airport has risen to 72, two officials who worked at the Ministry of Health before the Taliban took over told AFP on Friday.
“There were many women and children among the victims. Most of the injured were in trauma and shock,” one of the former officials said, adding that the death toll only accounted for the number of people sent to the city hospital.
Watch | Biden warned Kabul airport attackers: “We will hunt you down”
The bombing at Kabul Airport on Thursday caused a “complete panic” among Afghans who gathered outside hoping to flee the safe areas of the country’s new Taliban rulers.
Images posted on social media showed that injured men wearing blood-stained clothes were transported away from the scene in a wheelbarrow, while a boy was holding the arm of a man with a head injury.
“The corpses, flesh and people were thrown into a nearby canal,” Millard said at the scene of the first explosion.
“When people heard the explosion, they were completely panicked. The Taliban then started firing into the air to disperse the crowd at the door,” another witness said.
The commander of the US Central Command vowed Thursday to retaliate against the deadly attack on Kabul Airport, which he blamed on “two suicide bombers assessed as fighters of the Islamic State.”
General Kenneth McKenzie said: “We are now working very hard to determine the attribution, who is related to this cowardly attack, and we are ready to take action against them.”
He added that the U.S. military is “prepared and ready to resist” a possible further Islamic State attack.
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