The U.S. military service members who were injured in the bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport during the frantic evacuations last week are now all back in the United States, where they continue to be treated.
The U.S. military, in the final chapter of the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan, facilitated the evacuation of more than 120,000 foreign citizens and afghans who would be at risk living under the Taliban regime. Officials repeatedly warned about the dangers of the noncombatant evacuation mission, and those fears were brought into reality when a suicide bomber killed nearly 200 people, including 13 service members, at the gates of the airport last Thursday.
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Twenty service members were injured in the blast, and the last of them were evacuated to Water Reed National Military Medical Center outside of Washington, D.C., on Monday. The patients, many of whom arrived in critical condition, were previously treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
“Every single service member that received care here left our facility in much better condition than when they arrived,” said Col. Andrew Landers, the LRMC commander, according to Military.com.
The service members’ recovery will hinge on what “happens over the next four to six weeks in their treatment and recovery process,” he said, adding that many of the injuries suffered were “consistent with what you see in any type of blast.”
Col. Peter Kim, an Air Force physician who is also the chief medical officer at LRMC, said some of the patients had gunshot wounds, which is consistent with the Pentagon’s previous statements that ISIS-K fighters opened fire following the detonation of the bomb.
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The bombing was the only successful terrorist attack ISIS-K conducted because the U.S. foiled two other plots.
In one case, the U.S. conducted an airstrike on a vehicle that posed an “imminent threat” to the evacuations at the airport, and subsequent explosions indicated the “presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said at the time. There have been reports that up to 10 civilians, including children, were killed in the strike.
The U.S. military also intercepted rockets fired at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
