Crusaders and their interpreters and spies were killed - these cynical words were found in the letter of confession that was published on the Internet on the evening of the attack at Kabul airport about the numerous military and civilian victims of the terrorist act. The "Islamic State - Khorasan Province" (ISKP) praised the suicide bomber who had reached the airport with his bomb and warned the Americans and their allies: The "soldiers of the caliphate" would continue to fight them. The letter published on behalf of the terrorist group also spoke of "apostates" who had set up checkpoints on the way to the airport. Apparently the Taliban are meant. The devastating attack that killed at least 170 people and injured another 200,also sheds light on the competition among Islamist groups - and on the security challenges that the Taliban are now facing in Afghanistan.
Christian Meier
Editor in politics.
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Such an attack had been warned for days.
According to their own statements, even the Taliban themselves had passed on warnings to the Americans.
However, the extent of the horror on Thursday exceeded most fears.
Thousands of people crowded in front of the airport grounds, as they had for days, in the hope of finding entry and being able to leave the country.
In front of the "Abbey Gate", an entrance to the eastern part of the airport, it was so overcrowded that people stood in a canal with rubbish and barbed wire in it.
In this area, the assassin detonated his bomb in the midst of waiting families in the late afternoon.
On Thursday it was initially said that shortly afterwards a second suicide bomber had detonated a bomb just 300 meters away in front of the entrance to the Baron Hotel, where the British and other people who were supposed to leave Afghanistan were staying.
The Pentagon corrected the information on Friday and spoke only of an assassin.
Some reports also stated that gunmen opened fire on civilians and soldiers, but it is unclear whether it was Taliban fighters who shot into the air.
Taliban block roads to the airport
After the explosion, numerous corpses were seen lying in the canal. An Afghan eyewitness told Reuters news agency that he saw bodies and body parts flying through the air. "The little water that flowed in the sewer has turned to blood," said the man. Dozens of people were hospitalized. On Friday, pictures of missing children were circulating on social networks. The Taliban reportedly blocked the access road to the airport, where thousands continued to gather.
The horror is great, not just in Afghanistan. The previous defense minister, Bismillah Mohammadi, wrote on Twitter the day after the attack: "My hand is shaking, I'm speechless, I don't know what to write or do." Chancellor Angela Merkel and the entire government are "full of horror and disgust", said government spokesman Steffen Seibert in Berlin. "How inhuman, how vile such attacks are can hardly be put into words." In addition to the numerous civilians, 13 American soldiers were also killed and a further 18 injured. The Islamists later withdrew initial reports that numerous Taliban fighters had also been killed.