As Bombing’s Death Toll Soars, Desperate Afghans Seek Any Exit

The day after one of the deadliest suicide attacks in Afghanistan’s history, crowds still gathered at Kabul’s airport. “People are trying to leave the country at any price.”

Hundreds of Afghans desperate to flee the Taliban continued to crowd Kabul’s airport Friday, even after one of the deadliest bombings in the country’s history, as the death toll from the previous day’s blast neared 200 with hundreds more wounded, keeping the city’s hospitals grimly busy all day. The size of the crowd at the airport had dropped sharply, however, with fear paring the numbers down to hundreds from the thousands of previous days. The suicide bombing ripped right into the jostling throng Thursday afternoon, piling an adjacent sewage canal with corpses. Health officials said at least 170 civilians had been killed, and likely more. The attack also killed 13 U.S. service members, and one of the first to be identified was Rylee McCollum, 20, a Marine who had been on his first overseas deployment, according to his father. He was one of 10 Marines, two soldiers, and one Navy medic killed in the attack, according to defense officials.