The United States and allies urged people to move away from Kabul airport on Thursday due to the threat of a terror attack by Islamic State militants as Western troops hurry to evacuate as many people as possible before an Aug 31 deadline.
Pressure to complete the evacuations of thousands of foreigners and Afghans who helped Western countries during the 20-year war against the Taliban has intensified, with all US and allied troops due to leave the airport next week.
In an alert issued on Wednesday evening, the US embassy in Kabul advised citizens to avoid travelling to the airport and said those already at the gates should leave immediately, citing unspecified “security threats”.
In a similar advisory, Britain told people in the airport area to “move away to a safe location”.
“There is an ongoing and high threat of terrorist attack”, the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
Australia also urged its citizens and visa holders to leave the area, warning of a “very high threat of a terrorist attack” at the airport.
The warnings came against a chaotic backdrop in the capital, Kabul, and its airport, where a massive airlift of foreign nationals and their families as well as some Afghans has been underway since the Taliban captured the city on Aug. 15.
While Western troops in the airport worked feverishly to move the evacuation as fast as possible, Taliban fighters guarded the perimeter outside, thronged by thousands of people trying to flee rather than stay in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Ahmedullah Rafiqzai, an Afghan civil aviation official working at the airport, said people continued to crowd around the gates despite the attack warnings.
“It’s very easy for a suicide bomber to attack the corridors filled with people and warnings have been issued repeatedly,” he told Reuters.
“But people don’t want to move, it’s their determination to leave this country that they are not scared to even die, everyone is risking their lives.”
