Rocket launcher tubes are seen inside a destroyed vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. Rockets struck a neighborhood near Kabul’s international airport on Monday amid the ongoing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately clear who launched them. (AP Photo/Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi)
The Pentagon is tight-lipped about final operations and has not specified when the withdrawal will be completed ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. But spokesman John Kirby told reporters “there is still time” for Americans to join a massive airlift that has allowed more than 116,000 people to leave since the Taliban swept back into power two weeks ago.
Five rockets targeted the airport, said Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a U.S. military spokesman. A defensive weapon known as a C-RAM — a Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System — targeted the rockets in a whirling hail of ammunition, he said. The system has a distinct, drill-like sound that echoed through the city at the time of the attack.
An IS statement, carried by the group’s Amaq media outlet, claimed the militants fired six rockets.
Navy Vet
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