Rockets fired at Kabul airport day before U.S. withdrawal deadline

White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a statement saying Mr. Biden had been briefed “on the rocket attack” and “was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground.”

Witnesses told The Associated Press that some of the rockets had slammed down in Kabul’s Salim Karwan neighborhood, less than two miles from the airport. Gunfire then broke out, but it wasn’t clear who was shooting, the AP said.

At least five rockets were fired in the attack, U.S. officials told CBS News, and some may have been intercepted by a close-range missile defense system, but it was unclear if they were intercepted or just failed to reach their intended target. There were no initial reports of casualties.

The attempted rocket attack came one day after the U.S. conducted an airstrike against an ISIS-K vehicle laden with explosives near the airport. It was the second such strike against the militant group since a deadly attack against U.S. forces last week.

U.S. Navy Captain Bill Urban, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement that the strike was carried out by a drone and eliminated “an imminent ISIS-K threat” to Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Urban initially said there were no suspected civilian casualties, but CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata said Taliban officials and Afghan media were reporting that the blast had killed nine civilians, including a number of small children.

The Pentagon later acknowledged that there could have been civilian casualties. Urban said Central Command was aware of the reports and that the U.S. military was “still assessing the results of this strike.”