Officials are encouraging U.S. citizens to avoid Hamid Karzai International Airport due to a “specific, credible threat” just hours after President Joe Biden warned the area could experience a second attack following Thursday’s blast.

“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 U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, warned Saturday.

Biden cautioned Saturday afternoon that a second attack there was “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” according to field commanders, and hours earlier, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby cautioned that the threat of terrorism in the region remains “active” and “dynamic.”

SECOND ATTACK IN KABUL ‘HIGHLY LIKELY’ WITHIN 24 TO 36 HOURS, BIDEN SAYS

U.S. officials confirmed they have detected threats from the Islamic State offshoot that claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack near the Abbey Gate at the airport, which killed 13 U.S. service members and approximately 170 people total.

“The threat from ISIS is extremely real,” Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, the leader of U.S. Central Command, told reporters. “And we’re doing everything we can to be prepared for those attacks. That includes reaching out to the Taliban, who are actually providing the outer security cordon and around the airfield, to make sure they know what we expect them to do to protect us. And we will continue to coordinate with them as they go forward.”

Some lawmakers argued the airport was particularly susceptible to attack due to the Taliban’s grip on the capital city of Kabul.

“Kabul international [airport] is not defensible. I mean, it’s smack in the middle of a city of 4 million people. And no matter how far you push out the perimeter, you’re always going to have the Taliban surrounding it, controlling access to it,” Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican, told the Washington Examiner in a Friday interview. “I fear they’re going to take more casualties between now and August 31st.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham said the lack of security surrounding the airport in Kabul should prompt the United States to consider retaking the Bagram base, which the U.S. abandoned in July before it was captured by Taliban forces, as an alternative transit hub for those attempting to flee Afghanistan.

“We have the capability to reestablish our presence at Bagram to continue to evacuate American citizens and our Afghan allies,” he tweeted Thursday. “The biggest mistake in this debacle is abandoning Bagram.”

Former President Donald Trump, who has been highly critical of Biden’s handling of the chaos engulfing the region, agreed, saying on a podcast earlier that day, “We should have kept Bagram because Bagram is between China. It has total access to China, Iran, and Afghanistan. And I guess they didn’t realize that they abandoned it.”

Biden has held firm on keeping Tuesday as the date by which U.S. forces would leave Afghanistan, although there is bipartisan criticism arguing that the administration does not have a plan for evacuating U.S. citizens. The president has vowed to help all U.S. citizens who wish to flee the country, though some claimed they were stranded amid the chaos.

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Military forces have evacuated 5,400 U.S. citizens since Aug. 14, but the State Department is uncertain about the status of hundreds more.

“At present, approximately 350 Americans have told us that they are still seeking to leave the country. These roughly 350 individuals are currently the only Americans we can confirm are in Afghanistan and seeking to leave,” a State Department spokesperson told reporters on Saturday. “Additionally, we have actively communicated with roughly 280 additional individuals who self-identified as Americans in Afghanistan but who have not informed us of their plans to leave the country, or who have told us they do not intend to leave at all.”

Original Location: US Embassy urges evacuation of Kabul airport due to ‘specific, credible threat’

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