US unleashes 2nd drone strike as deadline nears

The United States claimed it killed "multiple suicide bombers" in a drone strike on Sunday, while Afghan witnesses said nine members of one family were killed in the attack, including several children.

American officials said a vehicle carrying members of Islamic State affiliate ISIS-K in Afghanistan on Sunday was blown up before its occupants could target the ongoing US military evacuation at Kabul's international airport, which is scheduled to conclude by Tuesday.

"We are confident we successfully hit the target," said US Navy Captain Bill Urban, a military spokesman. "Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material."

Witnesses to the drone strike said it targeted two cars parked in a residential building near the airport.

Nine members of one family were killed in the attack, according to a relative of the deceased.

Those killed included six children, the youngest a 2-year-old girl, the brother of one of the deceased told a local journalist working with CNN.

He said the people killed were his brother Zamaray (age 40), Naseer (30), Zameer (20), Faisal (10), Farzad (9), Armin (4), Benyamin (3), Ayat (2) and Sumaya (2), cnn.com reported.

"We are not ISIS or Daesh and this was a family home — where my brothers lived with their families," he said.

The US drone strike followed an Islamic State suicide bomb attack outside the airport Thursday that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members.

On Friday, the US military launched a first drone strike that it said targeted ISIS-K members in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, reportedly killing two of the group's planners and wounding a third.

All of the US service members killed on Thursday except one were in their 20s. Five of them were only 20 years old, a grim reminder as the 20th anniversary of Sept 11 approaches. The terrorist attacks on the US that day in 2001 led to the US military presence in Afghanistan less than a month later.

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were in Delaware on Sunday as the coffins containing the US service members killed at the airport arrived at Dover Air Force Base.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the US has the capacity to evacuate the estimated 300 Americans who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.

He said the US does not currently plan an embassy presence in Kabul after the withdrawal but will ensure "safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident" after Tuesday, as well as for "those Afghans who helped us".

The State Department released a statement signed by about 100 countries saying they had received "assurances" from the Taliban that people with travel documents would be able to leave the country.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, responded to a report in Politico last week that American officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to allow them access into the Taliban-controlled perimeter of the city's airport, where frenzied scenes have unfolded over the past two weeks.

"The idea that we've done anything to put at further risk those that we're trying to help leave the country is simply wrong. And the idea that we shared lists of Americans or others with the Taliban is simply wrong," Blinken said.

"In specific instances when you're trying to get a bus or a group of people through, and you need to show a manifest to do that, because particularly in cases where people don't have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them, then you would — you'll share names on a list of people on the bus so they can be assured that those are people that we're looking to bring in. And by definition, that's exactly what's happened," Blinken said.

Blinken added that the administration has evacuated 5,500 Americans from Afghanistan.

In a televised appearance on Sunday, US Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said: "We're leaving thousands of Afghan allies behind who fought bravely with us. We're going to leave hundreds of American citizens behind.

"The chance of another 9/11 just went through the roof. These drone attacks will not degrade ISIS. The number of ISIS fighters have doubled," Graham said on CBS' Face the Nation.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have sought to flee Afghanistan since the Taliban's lightning-quick takeover of the mountainous Asian country earlier this month, fearing a return to the strict rule of the Islamic fundamentalist group when it controlled the war-torn nation from 1996 until 2001.

The Taliban have pledged amnesty for all Afghans, including those who worked with the US and its allies, and say they want to restore peace. But many Afghans distrust the group, and there have been reports of summary executions and other human rights abuses in areas under Taliban control.

Karima Bennoune, the United Nations special rapporteur on cultural rights, said she had "grave concern" over the reported killing of Afghan folk singer Fawad Andarabi. "We call on governments to demand the Taliban respect the #humanrights of #artists," she posted on Twitter.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the singer's shooting would be investigated.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.