Germany will continue to help people who want to leave Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday after suspected suicide bombers struck the crowded gates of Kabul airport with at least two explosions.
"We do not know all the details yet, but the terrorists were targeting people waiting outside the airport gates, hoping to leave," she said at a news conference in Berlin, adding, "this is an absolutely despicable attack in a very tense situation."
A German hospital plane is on standby to fly to Kabul and help evacuate people that were injured in the attack at the airport, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Thursday after Germany completed its airlift operations.
"We have offered the medevac (medical evacuation aircraft) for the transport of wounded people," she told journalists in Berlin, adding that the Airbus was en route from Kabul to the Uzbek capital Tashkent where it would remain on standby and ready to return.
All German troops left Afghanistan on Thursday after evacuating more than 5,300 people from 45 nations, including more than 500 Germans and more than 4,000 Afghans, the minister said.