[KABUL] Two explosions hit Kabul airport on Thursday. While the number of injured or dead were still unconfirmed, reporters at a nearby emergency room said that at least 20 people had been brought to the site.

A Taleban official said at least 13 people including children were killed.

A man who witnessed the attack told the Afghan broadcaster TOLO News that “dead bodies and wounded people were scattered everywhere after the explosion happened,” and added that he had seen foreign forces “on the ground.”

“It was a very powerful explosion – we carried out the casualties on carts, and look at my clothes covered in blood,” he added, pointing to bloodstains. Elsewhere in the city, sporadic gunfire and alarms could heard from the airport.

The attacks came after the United States and its allies urged Afghans to leave the area because of a threat by Islamic State.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said one blast occurred near the airport’s Abbey Gate and the other close to the nearby Baron Hotel. Two US officials said at least one of the explosions appeared to be from a suicide bombing.

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A source who was in touch with a witness by text message quoted a witness as saying there appeared to have been two separate but simultaneous attacks, one by a suicide bomber near buses lined up outside Abbey Gate, where the blast was followed by small arms fire.

Thousands of people have been gathering outside the airport in recent days. Western troops are racing to evacuate foreigners and Afghans who helped Western countries during the 20-year war against the Taleban, and to get out themselves by an Aug 31 deadline.

The Taleban, whose fighters are guarding the perimeter outside the airport, are enemies of the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region.

"Our guards are also risking their lives at Kabul airport, they face a threat too from the Islamic State group," said a Taleban official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and before the reports of the explosion.

US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the explosion, according to a White House official. Mr Biden was in a meeting with security officials about the situation in Afghanistan when the explosions were reported, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The concerns about an attack came against a chaotic backdrop in Kabul, where the massive airlift of foreign nationals and their families as well as some Afghans has been under way since the day before the Taleban captured the city on Aug 15, capping a lightning advance across the country as US and allied troops withdrew.

NYTimes REUTERS