A vehicle laden with explosives rammed into cars and trucks at a checkpoint leading to the entrance of the Presidential Palace in Somalia, killing at least eight people, police said Saturday. The checkpoint is the one used by Somalia’s president and prime minister on their way to and from the airport in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Read:At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured Nine other people were wounded in the bombing, police spokesman Abdifatah Adam Hassan said. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group has claimed responsibility. The group often carries out such attacks in the capital.

President Joe Biden vowed Saturday to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. He warned another attack was “highly likely” and the State Department called the threat “specific” and “credible.” The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of U.S. forces at the airport, now numbering fewer than 4,000, had begun their final withdrawal ahead of Biden’s deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday. After getting briefed on a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday, Biden said the extremists can expect more. “This strike was not the last,” Biden said in a statement. “We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay.” He paid tribute to the “bravery and selflessness” of the American troops executing the hurried airlift of tens of thousands from Kabul airport, including the 13 U.S. service members who were killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing at an airport gate. Read:Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths The evacuation proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another IS attack. The State Department issued a new security alert early Sunday morning Kabul time instructing people to leave the airport area immediately “due to a specific, credible threat.” “Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” Biden said, adding that he has instructed them to take all possible measures to protect their troops, who are securing the airport and helping bring onto the airfield Americans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule. The remains of the 13 American troops were on their way to the United States, the Pentagon said. Their voyage marked a painful moment in a nearly 20-year American war that cost more than 2,400 U.S. military lives and is ending with the return to power of a Taliban movement that was ousted when U.S. forces invaded in October 2001. The remains of troops killed in action overseas are usually flown back to the U.S. via Dover Air Base in Delaware, where fallen troops’ return to U.S. soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the “dignified transfer.” The White House on Saturday did not say if Biden would travel to Dover for the troops’ return. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said shortly after the attack that the president “would do everything he can to honor the sacrifice and the service” of those killed. The Pentagon released the names of those killed — 11 Marines, one Navy sailor and one Army soldier. Twelve of them were in the 20s; some were born in 2001, the year America’s longest war began. The oldest was 31. They were the first U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban in which the militant group halted attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove all troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden announced in April that the 2,500 to 3,000 troops who remained would be out by September, ending what he has called America’s forever war. Read:Biden holds to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism With Biden’s approval, the Pentagon this month sent thousands of additional troops to the Kabul airport to provide security and to facilitate the State Department’s chaotic effort to evacuate thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who had helped the United States during the war. The evacuation was marred by confusion and chaos as the U.S. government was caught by surprise when the Afghan army collapsed and the Taliban swept to power Aug. 15. About 5,400 Americans have been evacuated from the country so far, including 300 in the last day. The State Department believes about 350 more want out; it said there are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but who have not told the State Department of their plans to leave the country, or who have said they plan to remain. Untold numbers of vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are likely to be left behind. Biden and the leaders of other Western countries have said they would try to work with the Taliban to allow Afghans who had worked with them to leave after the U.S.-led evacuation ends. The Pentagon said that about 6,800 people, mostly Afghans, were flown out in the 24 hours that ended Saturday morning, bringing to 113,500 the total number of people of all nationalities evacuated since the hurried exit was begun Aug. 14. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military force at the Kabul airport, which peaked at about 5,800, had begun its final withdrawal. The number had dropped below 4,000 on Saturday, according to a U.S. official who discussed details not yet publicly released on condition of anonymity. Kirby said that for security reasons the Pentagon will not provide a day-by-day description of the final stages of the military’s withdrawal, which includes flying home troops as well as equipment. The Pentagon said an airstrike early Saturday local time in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, killed two IS “planners and facilitators.” “They have lost some capability to plan and to conduct missions, but make no mistake, nobody’s writing this off and saying, ‘Well, we got them. We don’t have to worry about ISIS-K anymore.’ Not the case,” Kirby told a news conference, using an abbreviation for the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan. Read: Biden vows to evacuate all Americans — and Afghan helpers Biden also faces the problem over the longer term of containing an array of potential extremist threats based in Afghanistan, which will be harder with fewer U.S. intelligence assets and no military presence in the nation. Critics say Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves the door open for al-Qaida, the Islamic State and other extremist groups to grow and potentially threaten the United States. It was al-Qaida’s use of Afghanistan as a base, with the Taliban’s acquiescence, that prompted the United States to invade the country in October 2001, beginning the longest war in U.S. history. Saturday’s drone mission came less than two days after the Kabul attack and a public pledge by Biden that he would make IS “pay” for their suicide bomb attack. Officials made no claim that the two individuals killed played a direct role in Thursday’s Kabul airport attack. Kirby declined to release the names and nationalities of the two killed. He said one other person was wounded in the strike. The speed with which the U.S. retaliated reflected its close monitoring of IS and years of experience in targeting extremists in remote parts of the world. But it also shows the limits of U.S. power to eliminate the threat from extremists, who some believe will have more freedom of movement in Afghanistan now that the Taliban is in power. Kirby said the U.S. had “the ability and the means to carry over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities and we’re going to defend ourselves,” referring to the military’s use of aircraft based in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere to carry out strikes in Afghanistan.

Evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed with new urgency on Friday, a day after two suicide bombings targeted the thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban takeover. The U.S. says further attempted attacks are expected ahead of the Tuesday deadline for foreign troops to leave, ending America’s longest war. Kabul residents said several flights took off Friday morning, while footage shared by a local Tolo TV correspondent showed the anxious crowd outside the airport as large as ever. Read: Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths Thursday’s bombings near Kabul’s international airport killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said, in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since August 2011. In an emotional speech, President Joe Biden blamed the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, far more radical than the Taliban militants who seized power less than two weeks ago. “We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on,” Biden said. But despite intense pressure to extend Tuesday’s deadline, he has cited the threat of terrorist attacks as a reason to keep to his plan. The Taliban, back in control of Afghanistan two decades after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks, insist on the deadline. The Trump administration in February 2020 struck an agreement with the Taliban that called for it to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for the removal of all U.S. troops and contractors by May; Biden announced in April he would have them out by September. While the U.S. on Thursday said more than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated from Kabul, as many as 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Afghans are struggling to leave in one of history’s largest airlifts. Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief overseeing the evacuation, on Thursday said about 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield. Read:Kabul airport attack kills 60 Afghans, 13 US troops The scenes at the airport, with people standing knee-deep in sewage and families thrusting documents and even young children toward U.S. troops behind razor wire, have horrified many around the world as far-flung efforts continue to help people escape. But those chances are fading fast for many. Some U.S. allies have said they are ending evacuation efforts, in part to give the U.S. time to wrap up its evacuation work before getting 5,000 of its troops out by Tuesday. Britain said Friday its evacuations from Afghanistan will end within hours, and the main British processing center for eligible Afghans has been closed. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News there would be “eight or nine” evacuation flights on Friday, and they will be the last. British troops will leave over the next few days. The Spanish government said it has ended its evacuation operation. Untold thousands of Afghans, especially ones who had worked with the U.S. and other Western countries, are now in hiding from the Taliban, fearing retaliation despite the group’s offer of full amnesty. The militant group has claimed it has become more moderate since its harsh rule from 1996 to 2001, when it largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music and held public executions. Read: Europe gives dire warning as Kabul evacuation deadline looms But Afghans in Kabul and elsewhere have reported that some Taliban members are barring girls from attending school and going door to door in search of people who had worked with Western forces. No one knows how effective the Taliban will be at combating the Sunni extremists of IS, who have links to the group’s more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq and have carried out a series of brutal attacks in Afghanistan, mainly targeting its Shiite Muslim minority.

Nagasaki on Monday marked the 76th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese city with its mayor urging Japan, the United States and Russia to do more to eliminate nuclear weapons. In his speech at the Nagasaki Peace Park, Mayor Tomihisa Taue urged Japan’s government to take the lead in creating a nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia rather than staying under the U.S. nuclear umbrella — a reference to the U.S. promise to use its own nuclear weapons to defend allies without them. Read:Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing Taue also singled out the United States and Russia — which have the biggest arsenals by far — to do more for nuclear disarmament, as he raised concern that nuclear states have backtracked from disarmament efforts and are upgrading and miniaturizing nuclear weapons. “Please look into building a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Northeast Asia that would create a ‘non-nuclear umbrella’ instead of a ‘nuclear umbrella’ and be a step in the direction of a world free of nuclear weapons,” Taue said as he urged Japan’s government to do more to take action for nuclear disarmament. At 11:02 a.m., the moment the B-29 bomber dropped a plutonium bomb, Nagasaki survivors and other participants in the ceremony stood in a minute of silence to honor more than 70,000 lives lost. The Aug. 9, 1945, bombing came three days after the United States made the world’s first atomic attack on Hiroshima, killing 140,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II. Read:Tokyo shares peace message with Dhaka marking Hiroshima Day The mayor also called Japan’s government and lawmakers to quickly sign the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that took effect in January. Tokyo renounces its own possession, production or hosting of nuclear weapons, but as a U.S. ally Japan hosts 50,000 American troops and is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The post-WWII security arrangement complicates the push to get Japan to sign the treaty as it beefs up its own military while stepping up defense cooperation with other nuclear-weapons states such as Britain and France, to deal with threats from North Korea and China, among others. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the security environment is severe and that global views are deeply divided over nuclear disarmament, and that it is necessary to remove distrust by promoting dialogue and form a mutual ground for discussion. Read:Origami paper cranes folded by Rohingyas fly to Hiroshima with peace message Taue also called for a substantial progress toward nuclear disarmament made at next year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference, “starting with greater steps by the U.S. and Russia to reduce nuclear weapons.” He asked Suga’s government to step up and speed up medical and welfare support for the aging atomic bombing survivors, or hibakusha, whose average age is now over 83 years.

Separate bombs hit two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital Saturday, killing at least seven people and wounding six others, the Interior Ministry said. The attacks targeted minivans on the same road about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) apart in a neighborhood in western Kabul, Interior Ministry deputy spokesman Ahmad Zia Zia, said. Read: Afghan Hazaras being killed at school, play, even at birth It wasn’t immediately clear what type of bombs were used and no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. In some west Kabul neighborhoods populated mostly by the minority Hazara ethnic group, just going out for errands can be dangerous. The Islamic State group has carried out similar bombings in the area, including four attacks on four minivans earlier this month that killed at least 18 people. The first explosion of Saturday’s attack killed six people and wounded two and the second explosion in front of Muhammad Ali Jinnah hospital, where a majority of COVID-19 patients are admitted, killed one and wounded four. Read:Amid brutal case surge, Afghanistan hit by a vaccine delay The area where the explosions happened is largely populated by Hazaras, who are mostly Shiite Muslims. Shiites are a minority in mostly Sunni Afghanistan, and the local Islamic State affiliate has declared war against them. Hundreds of Afghans are killed or injured every month in violence connected to the country’s constant war. But Hazaras, who make up around 9% of the population of 36 million people, stand alone in being intentionally targeted because of their ethnicity and their religion. An attack on a Kabul school on May 8 killed nearly 100 people, all of them members of the Hazara ethnic minority and most of them young girls just leaving class. Read:NATO chief says Afghan forces can cope alone Violence and chaos continue to escalate in Afghanistan as the U.S. and NATO continue their withdrawal of the remaining 2,500-3,500 American soldiers and 7,000 allied forces. The last of the troops will be gone by Sept. 11 at the latest.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a rare suicide attack that rocked central Baghdad, killing 32 people and wounding dozens.