US denies involvement in Taliban’s killing of ISIS-K leader responsible for Kabul bombing
Mike Brest
Video Embed
The United States was not involved in the Taliban’s killing of the ISIS-Khorasan leader who was responsible for the Aug. 26, 2021, bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians, according to U.S. officials.
Members of the Taliban killed the person, whose identity the Biden administration has declined to share publicly, in early April, though details surrounding his death remain sparse.
ISIS LEADER BEHIND DEATHS OF 13 US SERVICE MEMBERS IN KABUL IS KILLED BY TALIBAN
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed the person’s death on Tuesday night, adding, “The United States was not involved in this operation.”
National Security Council coordinator John Kirby reiterated those comments on Wednesday, telling reporters the U.S. did not share any intelligence with the Taliban to assist in their operation. He also declined to share the person’s name, saying he’s “not at liberty to reveal that. I do understand the question. I do understand the interest. I’m not at liberty to reveal that. But we are confident that this particular individual was, in fact, the mastermind of the Abbey Gate attack.”
“After first learning about it, I will say that it took us a bit of time to be able to verify and corroborate,” he added. “So again, without getting into too much detail … we did continue to look at this to make sure we can verify it over time.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner, “Any time a terrorist is taken off the board is a good day. But this doesn’t diminish the Biden administration’s culpability for failures that led to the attack on Abbey Gate and will in no way deter the committee’s investigation.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), a member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, told the Washington Examiner, “It is remarkable that the Biden administration relied on the Taliban to kill the terrorists that are responsible [for] the deaths of 13 American heroes. This is another example of how the Biden administration is the worst combination of incompetence and impotence.”
Abdul Rahman al Logari was the man ultimately behind the bombing on Aug. 26. He had been released from a Bagram prison days earlier when the Taliban released hundreds of prisoners after gaining control of the prison amid their push to overthrow the Ghani government and Afghan army.
He approached Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military was evacuating tens of thousands of Afghans who feared living under the new Taliban regime, on Aug. 26 and detonated a suicide bomb, taking the lives of the U.S. service members and roughly 170 civilians. Nearly 60 U.S. service members were killed or wounded in the blast.
In the nearly two years since the U.S. left Afghanistan and the Taliban have been in power, they have fought against ISIS-K. The Taliban have conducted raids resulting in the deaths of Islamic State fighters, while ISIS-K members have carried out attacks against the Taliban and members of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority.
It’s the Taliban’s “responsibility to ensure that they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether it’s al Qaeda or ISIS-K,” Kirby said.
The U.S. is relying on its over-the-horizon capabilities for its counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan, which is the military’s ability to launch strikes from outside of the country. Strikes usually require precise intelligence that can only be acquired in the target environment, making strikes from afar more difficult.
“It is difficult right now, as I said in my confirmation hearing. It’s difficult but not impossible,” Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-March. “One of the things that we are trying to do is increase our intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance over that. We’re putting investment into long-duration high-altitude, alternative airborne ISR that can go up for days and weeks.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Kurilla believes ISIS-K could strike U.S. interests within six months, though that’s primarily in reference to Europe and Asia.
“It is my commander’s estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” he explained. “It is much harder for them to be able to do that against the homeland.”