An eyewitness to the suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport’s main entrance on Thursday said a young girl died in his arms — and the wounded American troops were checking passports.
The Afghan, identified as Karl, who said he was a translator for the US Marines, told Fox News that he was outside Hamid Karzai International Airport waiting in line for a plane to take him out of the country.
“There was an explosion that happened inside the crowd — a lot of people got hurt,” he said. “I got a baby girl — she was 5 years old — she died right in my hands.”
“I think some of the Americans, they got hurt, too, and people are running around,” Karl continued.
He said he saw the young girl on the ground and picked her up, but “she died right in my hands.”
Karl, who said he was taking some of the victims of the blast to the hospital in his vehicle, said the Americans were outside the airport when the explosion occurred.
“It happened by a canal. And the Americans were on the other side of the canal, and they were checking people’s passports and stuff and those people that have visas, they were taking them by the airport. That’s why they were outside,” he told Fox News.
At least three US troops were injured, including one who was seriously wounded, US officials said. An official told Reuters that US casualty numbers were expected to increase.
Shortly after the attack outside the airport’s Abbey Gate, there was another blast outside the nearby Baron Hotel.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the twin suicide explosions a “complex attack.”
“We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US & civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate. We will continue to update,” he said on Twitter.
Images posted on Twitter by TOLO News show Afghans pushing bloodied victims of the explosion in wheelbarrows in the streets of Kabul.
