Several US Republicans have blamed President Joe Biden after a suspected suicide bomb exploded outside Kabul airport on Thursday, killing several people, including US personnel.
Congressmen and congressional candidates from the Grand Old Party are calling for US President Joe Biden to either be impeached or resign from office after the deadly attack on Harmid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan.
Taking to Twitter, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas said, “If President Trump can be impeached over a phone call, then the time has come to IMPEACH Biden for gross negligence in Afghanistan. Americans deserve better. We deserve better than someone who willfully IGNORES the WORST crisis in decades.”
Similarly, Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Claudia Tenney issued strongly worded statements calling for accountability. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said Biden was unfit to be commander in chief. “Joe Biden has blood on his hands. The buck stops with the President of the United States,” she said.
It is reportedly said that at least two explosions took place outside the Kabul airport on Thursday as the United States and other countries tried to evacuate their citizens and Afghans at risk from the Taliban.
CNN News reported that three US officials and a source familiar with the situation said that according to initial reports, there were some US personnel among the casualties.
Also read: Kabul suicide attack: At least 13 dead, several injured
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby posted a tweet that read, “We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US & civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate. We will continue to update.”
According to initial reports, the blast took place at one of the entry gates of the Hamid Karzai International Airport and appears to be a suicide attack.
Several Afghanistan residents are seen gathering at the airport gates trying to gain access, which has become the only way out of the country since the Taliban took over Kabul.
The US Embassy in Kabul said that the US citizens who were at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate of the airport “should leave immediately” in the wake of the blast.
Also read: ‘Overwhelming majority’ airlifted from Afghanistan, says British PM
Earlier, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed that there was at least one other explosion near the airport, at or near the Baron Hotel.
He said he can confirm that the explosion at Abbey Gate was a “result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US and civilian casualties.”
Earlier today, France and the Netherlands announced that they will stop evacuation operations days ahead of the August 31 deadline for a complete withdrawal of US-led foreign troops in the wake of heightened security concerns in Kabul.