A brand new Pentagon overview of the occasions main as much as the bombing that killed 13 American service members on the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021, has reaffirmed earlier findings that U.S. troops couldn’t have prevented the lethal violence.
The overview’s conclusions give attention to the ultimate days and hours at Abbey Gate earlier than the assault, which additionally killed as many as 170 civilians. The overview supplies new particulars concerning the Islamic State bomber who carried out the suicide mission, together with how he slipped into the crowds making an attempt to evacuate the capital’s airport simply moments earlier than detonating explosives.
Some Marines who have been on the gate have mentioned they recognized the suspected bomber — who turned recognized to investigators as “Bald Man in Black” — within the crowds hours earlier than the assault however have been twice denied permission by their superiors to shoot him. However the overview, constructing on a earlier investigation made public in February 2022, rejected these accusations.
The narrative of missed alternatives to avert tragedy has gained momentum over the previous 12 months amongst conservatives and has contributed to broader Republican criticisms of the Biden administration’s troop withdrawal and evacuation from Kabul in August 2021.
The bombing was a searing expertise for the army after 20 years of battle in Afghanistan. 13 flag-draped coffins have been flown to Dover Air Power Base in Delaware, and a succession of funerals have been held throughout the nation for the service members, most of them below the age of 25.
Navy officers had stood by the conclusions of the sooner inquiry {that a} lone Islamic State suicide bomber carried out the assault and was not joined by accomplices firing into the group.
However below mounting political stress to deal with disparities within the earlier overview and the accounts of the Marines on the gate — which additionally included experiences that the Islamic State had carried out a check run of the bombing — a crew of Military and Marine Corps officers interviewed greater than 50 individuals who weren’t interviewed the primary time round.
One of many primary points was the identification of the bomber. Virtually instantly after the assault, the Islamic State recognized him as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari. U.S. and different Western intelligence analysts later pieced collectively proof that led them to the identical conclusion.
American officers on the time mentioned that Mr. Logari was a former engineering scholar who was one in every of a number of thousand militants free of at the least two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized management of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021. The Taliban emptied the amenities indiscriminately, releasing not solely their very own imprisoned members but in addition fighters from ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-Ok, the terrorist group’s Afghanistan department and the Taliban’s nemesis.
Mr. Logari was not unknown to the People. In 2017, the C.I.A. tipped off Indian intelligence brokers that he was plotting a suicide bombing in New Delhi, U.S. officers mentioned. Indian authorities foiled the assault and turned Mr. Logari over to the C.I.A., which despatched him to Afghanistan to serve time on the Parwan jail at Bagram Air Base. He remained there till he was freed amid the chaos after Kabul fell.
On the airport, investigators mentioned, the bomber detonated a 20-pound explosive, in all probability carried in a backpack or vest, spraying 5-millimeter ball bearings in an incredible blast that was captured in grainy video photographs proven to Pentagon reporters.
All this was recognized to the Marine and Military officers as they began their supplemental overview final September. However they have been assigned to deal with the lingering questions.
On the day of the bombing, Marines on the gate got intelligence to be looking out for a person with groomed hair, carrying unfastened garments and carrying a black bag of explosives. The overview crew decided, after further interviews and assessing safety digital camera footage and different pictures of the chaotic scene, that the outline was not particular sufficient to meaningfully slender the search.
However Marines on the gate got here ahead later to say that at about 7 a.m., they noticed a person matching the suicide bomber’s description. The Marines mentioned that the person had engaged in suspicious conduct and that that they had despatched pressing warnings to leaders asking for permission to shoot. Twice their request was denied, they mentioned.
The overview crew concluded that the Marines had conflated the intelligence experiences with an earlier recognizing of a person carrying beige garments and carrying a black bag. The crew additionally reviewed a photograph taken of the suspect from one of many sniper crew’s cameras.
The person in query didn’t really match the outline, the overview crew concluded. He was bald, wore black garments and was not carrying a black bag. Furthermore, pictures taken of Mr. Logari when he was in American custody didn’t match the images of the suspect, even after facial recognition software program was used.
“Al-Logari and ‘Bald Man in Black’ obtained the strongest destructive end result,” concluded a slide from the supplemental overview crew’s findings that was briefed to reporters.
Furthermore, the overview crew concluded, Mr. Logari didn’t arrive at Abbey Gate on Aug. 26 till “instantly earlier than” the assault, minimizing his possibilities of being detected by the Marines.
The overview crew went by way of the same course of to low cost the sightings of particular people whom Marines had suspected of finishing up a dry run of the eventual assault.
Members of the overview crew didn’t problem the motives or dedication of the Marines who raised the vexing questions. However ultimately, the overview crew concluded, the Marines have been mistaken.
As traumatic because the bombing was, maybe it isn’t shocking that the recollections and conclusions of Marines and troopers that day, nonetheless honest, weren’t supported by subsequent inquiries.
The findings of the unique Military-led investigation in February 2022 contradicted preliminary experiences by senior U.S. commanders that militants had fired into the group of individuals on the airport looking for to flee the Afghan capital and had triggered a number of the casualties.
The accounts of what unfolded instantly after the assault — from the Pentagon and folks on the bottom — modified a number of occasions. Protection Division officers initially mentioned that close by fighters from Islamic State Khorasan started firing weapons. That turned out to not be true.
Some folks close to the scene mentioned the Marines had shot indiscriminately into the group, apparently believing they have been below fireplace. That, too, in response to the accounting by the army’s Central Command, turned out to not be true, though investigators mentioned that British and American forces had fired warning photographs within the air.
