Wounded women arrive at a hospital for treatment after two blasts went off outside the airport in Kabul [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]

Kabul, August 26 (RHC)-- At least 13 people have been killed in two powerful explosions outside Kabul’s international airport, amid a huge and chaotic evacuation effort from Afghanistan.

A “complex attack” on Thursday at the airport in Afghanistan’s capital caused a number of US and civilian casualties, the Pentagon said.

A Taliban official and Russian officials confirmed at least 13 people were killed in the explosions.  The Taliban official said children were among the dead and that several other people were wounded in the blasts.  The city’s main Emergency Hospital said on Twitter that at least 60 wounded people were transferred to their facility so far.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said one blast occurred near the airport’s Abbey Gate and the other close to the nearby Baron Hotel.  Two U.S. officials said at least one of the explosions appeared to be from a suicide bombing.

“We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US and civilian casualties,” Kirby said on Twitter.  “We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate.”

Sources told Al Jazeera that tens of thousands of people had been waiting outside the Abbey Gate earlier in the day.  The explosions came after U.S. officials and allies had warned people not to come to the area around Hamid Karzai International due to the threat of an attack.