At least one killed in rocket strike in Kabul residential area: Reports
Videos of the reported attack showed smoke billowing from a building close to Kabul airport.
At least one child was killed after a rocket hit a residential locality near Kabul airport on Sunday evening, Al Jazeera reported, citing an Afghan police official. Afghan news agency Asvaka reported that two people were killed and three others were wounded in the attack.
Meanwhile, the United States military forces conducted an unmanned airstrike in Kabul on a vehicle carrying an “imminent ISIS-K [Islamic State-Khorasan] threat” to the city’s airport, Bill Urban, spokesperson of the US Central Command said, reported ANI.
Urban added that they were confident to have hit the target successfully.
“Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” Urban said. “We are assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties, though we have no indications at this time.”
The US airstrike appeared to be a separate incident, according to AP.
Earlier, local media in Afghanistan reported that an explosion was heard in a residential area, citing videos posted by social media users.
A security official from the Afghan government told AFP that the explosion was caused by a rocket and that “initial information shows [it] hit a house”, Al Arabiya News reported.
The reported explosion came only three days after the bombing outside Kabul airport that killed at least 170 people. The Islamic State of Khorasan, an affiliate of terror group ISIS, took responsibility for the attack on Thursday.
On Saturday, United States President Joe Biden had said that the country’s military commanders believed that another terror attack on the Kabul airport was highly likely in the next 24 to 36 hours.
However, there is no official statement yet on whether Sunday’s reported attack is linked to this warning.
Meanwhile, the US airstrike on Sunday was the second one of its kind in a span of three days. On Friday, the United States military conducted an unmanned airstrike against a planner of the Islamic State-Khorasan.