US asks its citizens to leave Kabul airport gates amid security concerns

The United States on Friday asked its citizens in Afghanistan to “immediately” leave the gates around Kabul’s airport, where twin bombings targeted at Afghans trying to flee the country took place, reported AFP. 

“US citizens who are at the Abbey gate, East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave immediately,” the US Embassy in Kabul said in a security alert.

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The warnings come as the Hamid Karzai International Airport remains the centre of security threats owing to evacuation operations being conducted. 

US security wing Pentagon, on Friday, said that the high-risk Kabul airlift operation to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies still faced “specific, credible threats.”

The security alert, however, gave no specifics or additional information on these threats but maintained that the site remains unsafe. Hence, the US has advised its citizens to vacate the area around the Kabul airport.

Since the Taliban coup last week, the Kabul airport is where the evacuation of Afghans and migrants is being operated from. The United States has evacuated and facilitated the shifting of approximately 109,200 people from Afghanistan since August 14, the White House has said on Friday.

“Since August 14, the US has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 109,200 people. Since the end of July, we have re-located approximately 114,800 people,” the release read. The country has been given permission to conduct an evacuation till August 31 to take their citizens.

Meanwhile, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, Senator Roger Marshall and other lawmakers urged him to evacuate American citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants and other at-risk populations, including women and children, from Afghanistan.

Kabul was hit by two bombings on Thursday. The United States, which has lost its 13 soldiers in the Kabul airport attack, launched a drone strike in Nangahar targeting an ISIS-K member believed to be involved in planning attacks against the US in Kabul on Saturday.  

Last week, Afghanistan was taken over by the terrorist group Taliban, who formed an interim government to assume control of the internal matters following President Ashraf Ghani’s resignation.