Chaos and a failure of 20 years in plain sight

More than 170 deaths from the terrorist attack near Kabul airport last week not only highlighted the humanitarian crisis created by the United States and its NATO allies but also marked the failure of 20 years of US-led invasion into another sovereign nation, analysts say.

With the deadline for evacuations of Tuesday looming, the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan has become "extremely fluid", but "fragile and complex at the same time", said Amina Khan, director of the Centre for Afghanistan, Middle East and Africa at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

And it was unfortunate that people were having to brace for more terrorist attacks because ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack, "has always caused violence and attacks in times of relative peace", she said.

The ISIS had disrupted limited ceasefires that took place between the Taliban and the then Ashraf Ghani government in 2018, 2019 and last year, she said.

In a Pentagon briefing on Saturday, US Army Major General Hank Taylor said: "Two high-profile ISIS targets were killed, one was wounded, and we know of zero civilian casualties."

Taylor, deputy director of the Joint Staff For Regional Operations, also told reporters that the blast at the Abbey Gate of Kabul airport involving a sole suicide bomber was the only attack that happened on Thursday, correcting earlier reports that a second attack was launched at the adjacent Baron Hotel, Xinhua reported.

Salman Bashir, former foreign secretary of Pakistan and a former ambassador to China, had called the ISIS-K attack on Kabul airport "deplorable".

The US had sent troops to the country two decades ago in the name of fighting terrorism, only to fail in its goal in countering terrorism, leaving such problems and chaos behind.

"This and all other terrorist organizations need to be eliminated and the international community should join efforts in this regard," Bashir said. "The perpetrators of this attack must be punished."

Khan said that contributing to the chaos in Afghanistan is that more than a dozen terrorist groups, large or small, are reported to be operating, and the US should question their motives and strategies.

In addition to Thursday's explosion, there was continuing chaos including gunfire, overcrowding and stampedes at the airport as large numbers of people tried to get out of the country regardless of whether they held passports or other travel documents.

Khan said it is unfair of US officials or others to blame the Taliban for the chaos, because they had said clearly time and again that people should avoid the airport and had expected attacks from the ISIS.

"As we are all aware, the international troops, primarily the Americans, are in charge of security within the airport, and outside the airport is the Taliban," Khan said. "But I think it's very difficult to vet the thousands of people that are flocking to the airport."

The Taliban had repeatedly said they were "not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave".

"Now everybody's looking at emerging evacuation flights as a lifetime opportunity to flee from adversity into what they believe as a land of opportunity," said Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Pakistan.

Many people in Afghanistan are young people tired of fighting and explosions and frustrated by non-employment and the unstable life, he said.

It is estimated that 80,000 Americans and Afghans who once worked for the US government were to be evacuated from Kabul airport.

"All these people have been very desperate," Gul said. Many of those who had chosen to leave were professionals educated in the West who had returned to the country, and their departure raises concerns of a brain drain that will adversely affect the country's rebuilding, he said.

Bashir warned that in some quarters there are those "who do not want stability and peace in Afghanistan and are playing spoiler by proxy attacks. It is therefore necessary that the root cause of terror be correctly identified and the spoilers should be isolated and made to desist."

To solve the humanitarian crisis at the airport, Bashir said, Afghans need the support of the world, and the Western world should accept its responsibility for creating a situation leaving people homeless.