U.S. Blasts Explosives-Rigged Vehicle En Route To Kabul Airport

A US military drone strike blew up a vehicle laden with explosives in Kabul on Sunday, a Defense Department official said, just hours after President Biden had warned that a terrorist attack against the Afghan capital’s airport was “highly likely.”

Photo Insert: A U.S. drone returning to base from a mission

A spokesman for US Central Command, Capt. Bill Urban, said the military was trying to determine whether the strike had caused civilian casualties, though he noted that there was no immediate evidence of that, Helene Cooper, Dan Blifesky, and Michael Levenson reported for the New York Times.

Idrees Ali of Reuters reported that the strike killed a suicide car bomber suspected of preparing to attack the airport, US officials said, as the US nears the end of its military presence in the city.

The strike is the second carried out by US forces in Afghanistan since an Islamic State suicide bomber struck the airport on Thursday, killing 13 US troops and scores of Afghan civilians trying to flee the country.

One US official said Sunday's strike was carried out by an unmanned aircraft and that secondary explosions following the strike showed the vehicle had been carrying a "substantial amount of explosive material."

Witnesses reported a large blast shaking a neighborhood north of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and television footage showed black smoke rising into the sky. US Central Command confirmed the strike and said in a statement that it had no immediate indication it caused any civilian casualties, but was investigating, the Associated Press (AP) also disclosed.

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