Analysis: Kabul airport attack impacts US, Taliban

Suicide bombers and gunmen targeted crowds massing near the Kabul airport Thursday, in the final days of the massive airlift that has drawn thousands of people seeking to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Several people were killed, including U.S Marines, U.S. and other officials said. U.S. military members also were among the wounded. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.

A U.S. official said the attack was "definitely believed" to have been carried out by the Islamic State group, whose affiliate in Afghanistan grew out of disaffected Taliban members who hold an even more extreme view of Islam.

Senior Fellow with the Washington think-tank the Brookings Institution, Vanda Felbab-Brown, said the attacks signifies that the Islamic State-Khorasan is attempting "to assert its presence," and challenge the Taliban's rule.

Felbab-Brown, an expert on international and internal conflicts and a senior advisor to the congressionally-mandated Afghanistan Peace Process Study Group, said the real issue for her was whether the U.S. and allies shared enough intelligence on the pending attack for the Taliban to prevent the attacks.

"And I would imagine that there would be really significant engagement with the Taliban now about why and how they failed to prevent it and what it means for both the immediate evacuation," Felbab-Brown said, adding it has wide spread ramifications for "the group's credibility with international actors to prevent terrorism from leaking out of Afghanistan, at minimum."

Despite intense pressure to extend the Tuesday deadline, U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly cited the threat of terrorist attacks against civilians and U.S. service members as a reason to keep to his plan.

"We need to see how the attack will affect U.S. decisions regarding the deadline and how it will change, " Felbab-Brown said.

The White House hurriedly put off Biden's first in-person meeting with Israel's new prime minister Thursday and canceled a video conference with governors on incoming Afghan refugees after explosions outside the Kabul airport killed more than a dozen people, including several U.S. service members.

But deadly developments in the Afghan capital of Kabul forced the White House to tear up the president's schedule, as he monitored the airport situation that was prompted by the Tuesday deadline he set for removing American citizens and troops from Afghanistan.

"This situation, the tragic deaths of US servicemen that we are hearing is just another poignant dimension of the way the United States is leaving so close to 9/11, the day chosen by President Biden as the end date of U.S. military presence," Felbab-Brown said.

"I would actually imagine that the pressure now is more to extend the deadline, to stay further, not simply be deterred and put forth an image of the US running only more out," she said.

The explosions detonated as the U.S. worked to get remaining Americans out of the country. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation.