Thread by @NorthAndrew

An entrance to Kabul airport that’s now infamous as the Abbey Gate. The place where at least 200 men, women and children were killed on 26/8, three months ago today, after a suicide bomber detonated in the crowd of people trying to get onto evacuation flights. A thread 1/8

The torn canvas and blackened wall of the adjacent Baron hotel compound are the only obvious reminders of the horror that unfolded here, and the blood-stained mud in the ground beneath. An unknown number of Afghans were killed by US troops opening fire after the explosion 2/8

Many of the victims died in the sewage canal beside the gate: a grim departure lounge for those who got accepted for evacuation after the fall of Kabul on 15/8 and picked out of the crush by the soldiers on the wall above. And then on 26/8 it became a grave 3/8

Discarded riot shields and heaps of clothes speak of the carnage. 13 US troops were killed in the blast. What looked like American body armour was poking from the mud in the canal 4/8

The Abbey Gate never opened again after the 26/8 attack, and it’s now blocked off by Taliban checkpoints. A solitary guard escorted me through 5/8

Many Afghans did get to the Abbey Gate and onto flights, some helped by ad hoc volunteer groups. I was part of one and wrote about it for @1843mag But we always knew it should never have been this way 6/8 economist.com/1843/2021/10/2…

When I visited the Abbey Gate, there were children playing at the same place where so many died on 26/8. In a country scarred by endless war, enduring memorials are too often a luxury. Everyone will have their own ideas of the meaning of this place..7/8

A terrible bookend to America’s war in Afghanistan certainly. A symbol of extremist terror also. Ultimately, the Abbey Gate is a memorial to some 200 Afghans whose only crime was to want a better life for themselves and their families, and that’s worth remembering 8/8

RIP all those who died that day