Haunting photos in Kabul show hundreds crowded at the airport gate waving their papers to be saved before the bombs went off

Thursday's attack killed 13 US military members and dozens of Afghans and the Pentagon said it was likely carried out by the Islamic State.

But photos from outside the airport earlier on Thursday show what people were experiencing before the blast.

Carrying just what they could hold in their arms, hopeful evacuees spent hours trying to get on planes to escape the Taliban, which took control of Kabul earlier this month.

Images show people waving documents at guards, gathering under razor wired fences, and standing in and around garbage outside Kabul's airport.

Thousands of people were eligible for visas for other countries, but evacuation flights were limited, making it difficult for countries, including the US, to bring all hopeful evacuees to safety.

On one side of the airport, evacuees waited near a knee-deep, sewage-filled canal, Sky News reported.

Due to the heat, which hit a high temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, the canal created a stench that could be smelled by surrounding crowds.

It was so chaotic that soldiers stood on the wall and held up their country's flag to show refugees where to go, the Wall Street Journal reported.

On Thursday, an estimated 250,000 Afghans who worked with the US hadn't been evacuated, according to The New York Times.

The UK has also left Afghans behind, while Germany, Canada, Spain, and New Zealand ended their evacuation efforts this week.

By Friday,more than 100,000 people had been evacuated from Kabul, but thousands more Afghans who helped the US military or are vulnerable to the militant group's strict rule are in danger of being left behind if they can't catch a flight out before the August 31 deadline for the US to leave.

Many people pictured at Hamid Karzai International Airport this week have had few belongings with them.

Military troops told refugees they could only bring one suitcase and the clothes they were wearing on board evacuation planes, according to the BBC.

The US State Department issued a depressing missive on Friday: "There are efforts underway to develop a system that will enable travelers from Hamid Karzai International Airport to recover baggage that was lost in transit."

Source: Newsweek

A source working on getting people out told NBC News that she was telling evacuees to bring enough food and water to last them up to 24 hours waiting at the airport.

An Afghan man told the BBC earlier this week that some people had been waiting for 14 or 15 hours without food and water.

An aerial photo from August 23 shows throngs of people waiting outside the airport.

This map of the airport shows you the choke points that made people waiting so vulnerable to attacks:

Biden said in a speech on Thursday that the terror attacks would not deter the US from completing its evacuation mission to help refugees stuck in Kabul.

"We will rescue the Americans. We will get our Afghan allies out. And our mission will go on," Biden said in his speech.

Flights resumed on Friday.