Pentagon review confirms findings on deadly ’21 blast
WASHINGTON — A new Pentagon review of the events leading up to the bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 has reaffirmed earlier findings U.S. troops could not have prevented the deadly violence.
The review’s conclusions focus on the final days and hours at Abbey Gate before the attack, which also killed as many as 170 civilians. The review provides new details about the Islamic State group bomber who carried out the suicide mission, including how he slipped into the crowds trying to evacuate the capital’s airport just moments before detonating explosives.
Some Marines who were at the gate have said they identified the suspected bomber — who became known to investigators as “Bald Man in Black” — in the crowds hours before the attack but were twice denied permission by their superiors to shoot him. But the review, building on a previous investigation made public in February 2022, rejected those accusations.
The narrative of missed opportunities has gained momentum over the past year among conservatives and has contributed to broader Republican criticisms of the Biden administration’s troop withdrawal and evacuation from Kabul in August 2021.
Military officials had stood by the conclusions of the earlier inquiry that a lone Islamic State group suicide bomber carried out the attack and was not joined by accomplices firing into the crowd.
But under mounting political pressure to address disparities in the earlier review and the accounts of the Marines at the gate — which also included reports the Islamic State group had conducted a test run of the bombing — a team of Army and Marine Corps officers interviewed more than 50 people who were not interviewed the first time around.
One of the main issues was the identity of the bomber. Almost immediately after the attack, the Islamic State group identified him as Abdul Rahman al-Logari. U.S. and other Western intelligence analysts later pieced together evidence that led them to the same conclusion.
Al-Logari was known to the U.S. In 2017, the CIA tipped off Indian intelligence agents he was plotting a suicide bombing in New Delhi, U.S. officials said. Indian authorities foiled the attack and turned al-Logari over to the CIA, which sent him to Afghanistan to serve time at the Parwan prison at Bagram Airfield. He remained there until he was freed amid the chaos after Kabul fell.
At the airport, investigators said, the bomber detonated a 20-pound explosive, probably carried in a backpack or vest, spraying 5 mm ball bearings in a tremendous blast that was captured in grainy video images shown to Pentagon reporters.
All this was known to the Marine and Army officials as they started their supplemental review in September. But they were assigned to address the lingering questions.
On the day of the bombing, Marines at the gate were given intelligence to be on the lookout for a man with groomed hair, wearing loose clothes and carrying a black bag of explosives. The review team determined, after additional interviews and assessing security camera footage and other photographs of the chaotic scene, the description was not specific enough to meaningfully narrow the search.