Kabul airport attack, worst US loss in Afghanistan since 2011

The death of at least 13 US servicemen from suicide bombings at the Kabul airport on Thursday is the worst loss for the Pentagon in Afghanistan since 2011.

General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command in charge of Afghanistan, said the military was killed when two suicide bombers, allegedly from the Afghan branch of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), detonated explosives next to the main gate of the airport and to a nearby hotel.

The dead, according to US media reports, included 11 Marines and a doctor from the same institution.

The attack took place while accelerating a gigantic evacuation operation of foreign and Afghan civilians led by USA after the Taliban seized power in mid-August.

The war of two decades in Afghanistan it has cost 1,909 US military lives in combat. Here are some major losses:

Helicopters

The biggest losses occurred on August 6, 2011, when insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter on a night mission in Wardak province, southwest of Afghanistan.

Thirty US servicemen, including 22 Navy SEAL special operations soldiers, were killed, as well as eight Afghans and a military dog.

Before that, the worse One-day death toll also involved a helicopter.

On June 28, 2005, three Navy SEALs were killed in a shootout after being flown into the mountains of eastern Kunar province.

A helicopter loaded with reinforcements that was dispatched to assist a still-alive SEAL on the ground, and to retrieve the bodies of the three fallen, was shot down, killing 16 on board.

In this image, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Air-Ground Maritime Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command, provide assistance during an evacuation at the Airport Hamid Karzai International, Kabul, Afghanistan, August 20, 2021.

Shootings

Other major losses include a July 2008 shootout between dozens of Taliban fighters and US troops in Wanat, Nurestán province, in which nine US soldiers were killed.

Fifteen months later, in October 2009, eight Americans were killed in a similar shootout with hundreds of Taliban fighters in Kamdesh, also in Nurestan province.

Alleged allies

Attacks alleged allies also claimed American lives in Afghanistan.

April 27 2011, eight members of the Air Force from USA and an American civilian were shot to death in the airport from Acceptance by an Afghan pilot.

And on December 30, 2009, a “Triple agent”(A spy pretending to be a double agent for one side, while in truth he was a double agent for the other side), that USA thought it was operating on its behalf, he killed seven Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers and contractors, as well as two other people, at a CIA facility in eastern Afghanistan known as Chapman Base.