EGN NEWS DESK
A brand new Pentagon evaluation 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 evaluation’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 evaluation 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 stated they recognized the suspected bomber — who grew to become 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. But the evaluation, 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. Thirteen flag-draped coffins have been flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and a succession of funerals have been held throughout the nation for the service members, most of them underneath the age of 25.
Military 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 gang.
But underneath mounting political strain to deal with disparities within the earlier evaluation and the accounts of the Marines on the gate — which additionally included stories that the Islamic State had performed a check run of the bombing — a staff of Army and Marine Corps officers interviewed greater than 50 individuals who weren’t interviewed the primary time round.
One of the primary points was the identification of the bomber. Almost 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 stated that Mr. Logari was a former engineering pupil who was certainly one of a number of thousand militants free of no less than two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized management of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021. The Taliban emptied the services indiscriminately, releasing not solely their very own imprisoned members but additionally fighters from ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-Okay, the terrorist group’s Afghanistan department and the Taliban’s nemesis.
Mr. Logari was not unknown to the Americans. In 2017, the C.I.A. tipped off Indian intelligence brokers that he was plotting a suicide bombing in New Delhi, U.S. officers stated. 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.
At the airport, investigators stated, the bomber detonated a 20-pound explosive, most likely 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 Army officers as they began their supplemental evaluation final September. But 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, sporting free garments and carrying a black bag of explosives. The evaluation staff decided, after further interviews and assessing safety digicam footage and different pictures of the chaotic scene, that the outline was not particular sufficient to meaningfully slim the search.
But 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 stated that the person had engaged in suspicious habits and that they’d despatched pressing warnings to leaders asking for permission to shoot. Twice their request was denied, they stated.
The evaluation staff concluded that the Marines had conflated the intelligence stories with an earlier recognizing of a person sporting beige garments and carrying a black bag. The staff additionally reviewed a photograph taken of the suspect from one of many sniper staff’s cameras.
The man in query didn’t really match the outline, the evaluation staff concluded. He was bald, wore black garments and was not carrying a black bag. Moreover, 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’ acquired the strongest detrimental consequence,” concluded a slide from the supplemental evaluation staff’s findings that was briefed to reporters.
Moreover, the evaluation staff concluded, Mr. Logari didn’t arrive at Abbey Gate on Aug. 26 till “instantly earlier than” the assault, minimizing his probabilities of being detected by the Marines.
The evaluation staff went by means of an analogous 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 evaluation staff didn’t problem the motives or dedication of the Marines who raised the vexing questions. But ultimately, the evaluation staff concluded, the Marines have been mistaken.
As traumatic because the bombing was, maybe it isn’t stunning that the recollections and conclusions of Marines and troopers that day, nonetheless honest, weren’t supported by subsequent inquiries.
The findings of the unique Army-led investigation in February 2022 contradicted preliminary stories by senior U.S. commanders that militants had fired into the gang of individuals on the airport looking for to flee the Afghan capital and had brought about 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 instances. Defense Department officers initially stated that close by fighters from Islamic State Khorasan started firing weapons. That turned out to not be true.
Some folks close to the scene stated the Marines had shot indiscriminately into the gang, apparently believing they have been underneath hearth. That, too, in keeping with the accounting by the army’s Central Command, turned out to not be true, though investigators stated that British and American forces had fired warning photographs within the air.
