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WASHINGTON – The Taliban have killed the leader of an Islamic State cell responsible for a suicide bombing at an international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 that killed 13 US troops and 170 civilians, four senior US officials said on Tuesday.
The government on Monday began calling relatives of American soldiers killed in the attack to tell them that the leader of a terrorist cell had been killed by Taliban security forces in recent weeks.
American officials said that US intelligence analysts learned in early April that the mastermind of the attack, who has not been identified, had been killed in a Taliban operation in Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the Taliban specifically targeted the insurgents or if he was killed in one of the increasing attacks between the Taliban and Islamic State fighters, the official said.
The official said that based on classified intelligence reports – most likely from informants, electronic intercepts or information from allied spy services – analysts concluded with “high confidence” that the mastermind of the airport attack had been killed. But the official did not provide evidence to support that conclusion or any other details about his alleged death.
Officials are also saving details to share with the families of fallen service members.
“They couldn’t give me a name; they couldn’t tell me the details of the operation,” said Darin Hoover, father of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover of the Marine Corps, who was killed in the blast.
Mr. Hoover said that while he did not expect the military to share everything it knew, the call left him feeling “frustrated all over again.”
“I want the administration to take some accountability and responsibility for this,” Mr. Hoover said. “Say, ‘We screwed up. It won’t happen again.’ It can’t happen again. He gave his life for this. This is what he wanted, and this is what happened – and now we’re all treated like trash.
The 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan and its aftermath continue to be the topic of heated debate on Capitol Hill, where Republicans have voiced similar demands to the Biden administration.
GOP lawmakers have accused the administration of direct responsibility for the exit failure and condemned administration officials as inept when it comes to the future of counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. Democrats have largely defended the officials, arguing they are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances and blaming President Biden’s predecessor, Donald J. Trump, for making a deal with the Taliban that kept the United States out.
Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who opened one of the congressional investigations into the evacuation of Afghanistan, spoke of the report of the assassination of the terrorist leader responsible for the Abbey Gate attack. He said in a statement that “if the report is true, any time a terrorist is removed from a place is a good day.”
“But this does not diminish the responsibility of the Biden administration for the failure that led to the attack on Abbey Gate, and it will not hinder the committee’s investigation,” McCaul added.
There has been very limited, if any, sharing of information about the Islamic State between the Taliban and the United States, and U.S. officials have said the United States was not involved in the attack that killed the cell’s leader.
An affiliate of the Islamic State, known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, and the Taliban have been fighting a war since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The attack raised the international profile of ISIS-K, positioning it as a major threat to the Taliban’s ability to rule the country and, according to American officials, the closest terrorist risk to the United States emerging from Afghanistan.
President Biden and top commanders have said the United States will conduct “over-the-horizon” strikes from bases in the United Arab Emirates against ISIS and Qaeda insurgents who threaten the United States.
For the past two years, the Taliban have been waging a heavy campaign against ISIS-K in Afghanistan. Until now, the security services have effectively prevented the group from seizing territory or recruiting many ex-Taliban fighters who have grown weary in peacetime – among the worst-case scenarios they have faced after the fall of the Western-backed Afghan government.
However, in the absence of American airstrikes and Afghan commando strikes that have killed many of its leaders, ISIS-K has spread from its original stronghold in eastern Afghanistan to nearly all of the country’s 34 provinces, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The group has also carried out major suicide attacks on government buildings and foreign embassies in Kabul.
The attacks have tarnished the image of peace the Taliban sought in Afghanistan under their rule, the first relative calm in the country in 40 years and the hallmark promise of the Taliban’s new government. Although some officials with the Taliban administration promoted the success of the attack in hiding ISIS-K, others directly denied the presence of ISIS-K in the country.
In February 2022, a Pentagon report concluded that one Islamic State suicide bomber carried out the attack on the Abbey Gate at the airport. The findings by an Army-led investigative team contradict initial reports by a senior US commander that militants opened fire on a crowd at an airport who were trying to flee the country, causing several casualties.
The report also absolved the Marines from firing into the crowd at Abbey Gate as some officials had suspected because of the large amount of ammunition the Marines had fired after the attack, which took place on August 26.
The Islamic State identified the suicide bomber as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari. American officials said he was a former engineering student who was among thousands of militants freed from at least two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized Kabul 11 days before the attack. The Taliban vacated the facility indiscriminately, releasing not only imprisoned members but also fighters from ISIS-K.
Perhaps the biggest mistake by the United States after the Abbey Gate bombing would come just three days later. On August 29, American officials, fearing another suicide bomber would hit the airport, launched a drone strike, firing a white Toyota filled with what may have been water canisters, not explosives. Officials who called the strike did not recognize video footage showing the presence of at least one child in the area two minutes before the strike.
In the end, 10 civilians, including seven children, were killed.
Karoun Demirjian reported from Washington, and Eric Schmitt of Portland, Ore. Christina Goldbaum contributed reports from London.
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