The US Embassy in Afghanistan is urging Americans to leave the Kabul airport area because of a specific threat in Afghanistan.
"Due to a specific, credible threat, all U.S. citizens in the vicinity of Kabul airport (HKIA), including the South (Airport Circle) gate, the new Ministry of the Interior, and the gate near the Panjshir Petrol station on the northwest side of the airport, should leave the airport area immediately," the embassy said in a security alert.
Meanwhile, the US State Department also urged all Americans in the vicinity of Afghanistan's Kabul airport to leave the area immediately because of a specific, credible threat. The warning says US citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid all airport gates at this time. President Joe Biden vowed to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. Another terror attack, he said, is "highly likely" this weekend as the US winds down its evacuation.
The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of US forces at the airport, now numbering fewer than 4,000, had begun their final withdrawal ahead of Biden's deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday.
After getting briefed on a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday, Biden said the extremists can expect more.
"This strike was not the last," Biden said in a statement. "We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay." He paid tribute to the "bravery and selflessness" of the American troops executing the hurried airlift of tens of thousands from Kabul airport, including the 13 US service members who were killed in Thursday's suicide bombing at an airport gate.
The evacuation proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another IS attack.
"Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours," Biden said, adding that he has instructed them to take all possible measures to protect their troops, who are securing the airport and helping bring onto the airfield Americans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule.
The remains of the 13 American troops were on their way to the United States, the Pentagon said. Their voyage marked a painful moment in a nearly 20-year American war that cost more than 2,400 US military lives and is ending with the return to power of a Taliban movement that was ousted when US forces invaded in October 2001.
The remains of troops killed in action overseas are usually flown back to the US via Dover Air Base in Delaware, where fallen troops' return to US soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the "dignified transfer." The White House on Saturday did not say if Biden would travel to Dover for the troops' return. Biden's press secretary, Jen Psaki, said shortly after the attack that the president "would do everything he can to honor the sacrifice and the service" of those killed.
The Pentagon released the names of those killed - 11 Marines, one Navy sailor and one Army soldier. Twelve of them were in the 20s; some were born in 2001, the year America's longest war began. The oldest was 31.
On Friday, the White House admitted there was clearly a breakdown in the security process that failed to prevent this week's suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which left scores dead.
Earlier, the British and Australian governments issued similar warnings, with Australian officials describing "an ongoing and very high threat of terrorist attack." Marise Payne, Australia's Foreign Minister, said at a news conference Thursday that the Taliban will allow Australian citizens and visa holders to leave safely but added, "Our travel advice remains: You should not come to Hamid Karzai airport because it is not safe to do so, and if you are in Kabul, you should shelter in place, move to a safe location and await further advice." Thousands of Afghan nationals are camped outside the perimeter of the airport in desperate attempts to escape on the last flights out after the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
(With inputs from ANI and Associated Press)
