Kabul: Mission airlift in full swing after airport attack, another terror attack likely

US President Joe Biden's national security team has told the president that another terror attack is “likely'' in Kabul, and that “maximum force protection'' measures are being taken at the airport a day after suicide attack outside it killed more than 100 people, including 13 US troops.

In an emotional address after the bombing, Biden declared to the extremists responsible: “We will hunt you down and make you pay.''

US General Hank Taylor said only one suicide bomber, and not two as initially reported, carried out the attack. Some US media organisations, citing local health officials, said as many as 170 people, not including the American troops, had died in the attack.


Taylor said around 111,000 people had been evacuated since August 14 as part of the airlift, and 12,500 in the previous 24 hours alone, on 89 US and coalition flights. He said 5,400 more were at the airport Friday awaiting evacuation.

Germany has left at least 5,000 former staff and their families behind in Afghanistan, a support network founded by German troops said on Friday, vowing to keep pressing for them to leave the country even after the August 31 deadline runs out.

Britain said that it planned to complete its airlifts out of Afghanistan on Friday, but that it would "shift heaven and earth" to get people out after the August 31 deadline. Italy and Switzerland have completed their evacuation operations but French evacuations could continue beyond Friday evening. Japan says there are still a few Japanese nationals to be evacuated.

Meanwhile, a senior Taliban official said on Friday that Afghans with valid documents will be able to travel in the future at any time. "The Afghan borders will be open and people will be able to travel at any time into and out of Afghanistan," Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, deputy head of the movement's political commission said.