US downs rockets fired at Kabul airport

The rockets did not halt the steady stream of US military C-17 cargo jets taking off and landing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Last week, the IS group launched a devastating suicide bombing at one of the airport gates that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members. 

Since the suicide bombing, the Taliban have tightened security cordon around the airfield, with their fighters seen just up to the last fencing separating them from the runway. 

In the capital’s Chahr-e-Shaheed neighbourhood, a crowd quickly gathered around the remains of a four-door sedan used by the attackers, which had what appeared to be six homemade rocket tubes mounted where the backseat should be. 

“I was inside the house with my children and other family members, suddenly there were some blasts,” said Jaiuddin Khan, who lives nearby. “We jumped into the house compound and lay on the ground.” 

The rockets landed across town in Kabul’s Salim Karwan neighbourhood, striking residential apartment blocks, witnesses said. 

In Washington, Capt Bill Urban, spokesman for the US military’s Central Command, said there were no US casualties. He said US forces used a defensive weapon known by the acronym C-RAM, a counter-rocket, artillery and mortar system, in response to the attack. It targeted the rockets in a whirling hail of ammunition, Urban said. 

He said the Kabul airfield remains operational as the evacuation continued on Monday.