By FARNOUSH AMIRI, MATTHEW LEE, AAMER MADHANI and LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A floor assault by the Taliban killed the Islamic State militant who spearheaded the August 2021 suicide bombing on the Kabul airport that left 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans useless through the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. officers stated.
Initially, neither the U.S. nor apparently the Taliban have been conscious that the mastermind was useless. He was killed throughout a sequence of battles early this month in southern Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Islamic State group’s affiliate, in response to a number of officers.
But prior to now few days, U.S. intelligence confirmed “with high confidence” that the Islamic State chief had been killed, a senior administration official stated Tuesday. The officers spoke on situation of anonymity to debate intelligence issues.
Late Tuesday evening, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder issued an announcement confirming that the plotter had been killed by the Taliban. “The United States was not involved in this operation,” Ryder stated.
Over the weekend, the U.S. army started to tell the mother and father of the 11 Marines, the sailor and the soldier who have been killed within the blast at Abbey Gate, and so they shared the data in a non-public group messaging chat. The father of one of many Marines stated the demise of his son’s killer brings little consolation.
“Whatever happens, it’s not going to bring Taylor back and I understand that,” Darin Hoover, the daddy of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, stated in a telephone name with The Associated Press. “About the only thing his mom and I can do now is be an advocate for him. All we want is the truth. And we’re not getting it. That’s the frustrating part.”
Hoover stated he and his son’s mom, Kelly Henson, have spent the previous yr and a half grieving his demise and praying for accountability from the Biden administration for the dealing with of the withdrawal.
He added that the Marines supplied solely restricted data to him and didn’t establish the Islamic State chief or give the circumstances of his demise. U.S. officers declined to offer many particulars due to sensitivities within the intelligence gathering.
The administration official stated it was their “moral responsibility” to let the victims’ households know that the “mastermind” and “person most responsible for the airport attack” had been taken off the battlefield. The official added that intelligence officers decided that the chief had “remained a key plotter and overseer” for the group.
Several officers stated the U.S. performed no position within the killing and didn’t coordinate in any respect with the Taliban. The administration official known as the Taliban motion “significant” and stated the U.S. solely realized of the operation by means of its “over the horizon” intelligence capabilities.
Hoover is amongst a bunch of 12 Gold Star households which have stored in contact because the bombing, supporting each other and sharing data by means of the messaging chat. The chat was created by Cheryl Rex, the mom of Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, who died within the blast.
Rex, who has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s dealing with of the withdrawal, advised the AP it was by means of the chat group that they have been knowledgeable late Monday concerning the killing as they awaited official affirmation from U.S. army officers.
The fallen service members have been amongst these screening the hundreds of Afghans frantically attempting on Aug. 26, 2021, to get onto one of many crowded flights in a foreign country after the brutal Taliban takeover. The scene of desperation shortly became one in all horror when a suicide bomber attacked. The Islamic State group claimed accountability.
The blast at Abbey Gate got here hours after Western officers warned of a serious assault, urging folks to go away the airport. But that recommendation went largely unheeded by Afghans determined to flee the nation in the previous few days of an American-led evacuation earlier than the U.S. formally ended its 20-year presence.
The Afghanistan-based offshoot of the Islamic State — known as Islamic State-Khorasan — has as much as 4,000 members and is the Taliban’s most bitter enemy and high army menace. The group has continued to hold out assaults in Afghanistan because the Taliban takeover, particularly towards the nation’s minority teams.
After the Trump administration reached a 2020 cope with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Biden administration adopted by means of on that settlement in 2021, there had been hope in Washington that the Taliban’s need for worldwide recognition and help for the nation’s impoverished inhabitants may average their habits.
But relations between the U.S. and the Taliban have deteriorated additional since they imposed draconian new measures banning ladies from college and excluding girls from working for worldwide support and well being businesses.
However, a line of communication nonetheless exists between the 2 sides, led by the U.S. particular envoy for Afghanistan, Tom West. West’s contacts are primarily with Taliban officers in Kabul and never with the group’s extra ideological wing based mostly in Kandahar.
The U.S. determination to withdraw all troops fueled the swift collapse of the Afghan authorities and army, which the U.S. had supported for almost twenty years, and the return to energy of the Taliban. In the aftermath, President Joe Biden directed {that a} broad overview look at “every aspect of this from top to bottom” and it was launched earlier this month.
The Biden administration within the publicly launched model of the overview largely laid blame on President Donald Trump for the lethal and chaotic 2021 withdrawal, which was punctuated by the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate.
News of the killing got here on the identical day that Biden formally introduced he’ll search a second time period as president, providing a reminder of one of the vital tough chapters of his presidency. The disastrous drawdown was, on the time, the largest disaster that the comparatively new administration had confronted. It left sharp questions on Biden and his staff’s competence and expertise — the dual pillars central to his marketing campaign for the White House.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stated Tuesday the U.S. has “made clear to the Taliban that it is their responsibility to ensure that they give no safe haven to terrorists,” whether or not from al-Qaida or the Islamic State.
“We have made good on the President’s pledge to establish an over-the-horizon capacity to monitor potential terrorist threats, not only from in Afghanistan but elsewhere around the world where that threat has metastasized as we have done in Somalia and Syria,” Kirby stated in an announcement.
Yet Rex stated the administration has not performed sufficient to take accountability for what occurred at Abbey Gate.
“I feel like this is the administration trying to get the pressure off of them for accountability by saying that we’re holding ISIS accountable for our kids’ death,” Rex stated.
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Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”