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Rockets fired at Kabul airport in Afghanistan: witnesses

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KABUL: AUGUST 30 – Five rockets were fired early Monday at Kabul airport in the Afghan capital, where the evacuation of U.S.-led troops is underway, witnesses said.

“The rockets attached to a sedan were fired towards the airport from Khair Khana Minia locality. It looked to me that the U.S. missile system intercepted the rockets,” witness Sayyad Mohammad told Xinhua.

There is no report of casualties yet.

Media reports quoted a statement from the White House as saying that U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on the rocket attack and that the operations at the Kabul airport continued “uninterrupted.”

The Taliban has not confirmed the incident so far.

Evacuation flights continued as the U.S. troops were at the final stage of their withdrawal from Afghanistan. The pull-out is expected to be completed on Tuesday.

U.S. unmanned planes have been flying over Kabul since Sunday.

On Thursday, at least 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. soldiers were killed and about 200 people wounded in a suicide blast that hit an eastern airport gate, where huge crowds were waiting to board evacuation flights.

ISIS-K, a local affiliate of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan, has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

On Sunday, at least six civilians and a suspected militant of ISIS-K were killed in a U.S. drone attack in a neighbourhood west of the airport.

-Xinhua