According to the latest comments from the United States, the suicide bombing that killed US troops and Afghans at Kabul Airport in August 2021 was unavoidable. The “bald man in black” discovered by US soldiers on the morning of the attack was not the bomber. Central Command.

Findings. The report, released on Monday, refutes claims by some service members who believed they had a chance to neutralize the would-be bomber but were not given the go-ahead. The U.S. military identified for the first time the bomber as Islamic State militant Abdul Rahman al-Logari, who was held in an Afghan prison before the Taliban took control of the country this summer. He was later released by the Taliban.

The Abbey Gate bombing in the final chaotic days of the Afghan withdrawal killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans and injured dozens more. That sparked widespread debate and criticism in Congress, fueled by testimony from a Marine injured in the blast who said snipers believed they saw the possible bomber but could not get approval to remove the bomber. its elimination.

Former Marine Corps Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last March that Marines and others assisting in the evacuations were given descriptions of people believed to be planning the attack. Vargas-Andrews was injured in the explosion but was not interviewed during the preliminary investigation. He said he and others saw a man matching the description and might have been able to stop the attack, but requests for action were denied.

In detailed briefings to a handful of journalists, review panel members released photos of a bald man identified by military snipers as a potential threat and compared them with photos of Logari. The team members, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity for details that have not yet been made public, described the facial recognition and other analyzes they used and said those analyzes confirmed it was not the same person.

“Over the past two years, some military personnel have claimed they saw bombers and that they could have prevented the attack. We now know this is untrue,” one team member said.

They said they also showed troops a photo of the bald man during recent interviews, and the troops reconfirmed that this was the suspicious man they were targeting.

The review noted that the bald man first appeared around 7 a.m. and that troops lost sight of him at 10 a.m. The explosion occurred more than seven hours later, and the United States said Logari did not reach the monastery gates until “very soon”. “before the explosion. They declined to say when, saying the details were confidential.

Families of bomb victims have received similar briefings over the past two weekends, but some remain unconvinced.

“Personally, we still don’t know. I believe Taylor saw what Taylor saw, and he knew what he saw. And it wasn’t the Man in Black that they claimed,” Jim, the father of the Marines Corporal McCollum Lance. Riley McCollum told The Associated Press.

He said the team conducted “pretty detailed research, not to try to discredit Taylor, but to effectively show that he was wrong. However, ultimately it was as clear as mud to us.”

and Mark Schmitz, father of Marine Corporal Lance Corporal. Jared Schmitz questions the photo itself.

“They kept saying this is who Tyler Vargas-Andrews was looking at, and we thought to ourselves, ‘Okay, that’s interesting. Why is this a photo from a Canon camera?’” he said. “To me, it feels like they’re trying to find someone in those cameras who might look similar to someone they could try to sell to us.”

However, family members also said they were relieved to learn more details about their loved one’s death and said the initial briefing was not that great.

Schmitz said Army Gen. Eric Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, attended the latest briefing and apologized for the treatment of the families during the initial investigation. This time, officials shared for the first time with Schmitz the exact location where his son was when the bomb exploded, and he lost consciousness almost immediately and therefore did not feel the impact of the shrapnel that passed through his left torso, striking his son. Aorta.

“For me, first of all, this is the best news I could get,” Schmitz said. “It gives me a little bit of closure and it makes me feel really good that my son didn’t suffer.”

Team members said they also plan to speak with the troops interviewed this time to share the report’s findings.

They said the review also could not completely rule out the suggestion that militants had carried out a test run of bombings days earlier. But after reviewing photos and other intelligence, the team concluded that the three men carrying a large bag – which the force deemed suspicious – were unlikely to be on a trial run.

More broadly, the team said the review revealed a number of new details, including more discussions about possible bombing test runs. But overall, they said, it confirmed U.S. Central Command’s initial findings into the blast: that it was unpreventable and that reports of the threat before the explosion were too vague.

As an example, the new review noted that the threat report mentioned a possible bomber with neat hair, baggy clothes and a black bag. Comments said the description could match anyone in the huge crowd desperately trying to get into the airport.

The team said it conducted 52 interviews for the review, or a total of 190 interviews if previous investigations are included. Service staff were asked approximately 64 questions, and sessions lasted from one to seven hours.

Many of those questioned were not included in the initial investigation, many because they were seriously injured in the attack. Kurila ordered the new review last September, largely because of criticism of the initial investigation and claims the deadly attack could have been stopped.

The Islamic State group published the name of the bomber on social media, but U.S. intelligence later independently confirmed the report, team members said.

A preliminary investigation by U.S. Central Command concluded in November 2021 that given the deteriorating security situation at the airport’s Convent Gate given Afghans’ growing desire to flee, “at a tactical level, this attack was unavoidable and unavoidable.” would impact the mission of maximizing the number of evacuees.

Critics have slammed the Biden administration’s disastrous evacuations, complaining that no one was held accountable. Although the United States managed to evacuate more than 130,000 civilians from the country during the panic after the Taliban took control of the government, images of desperate Afghans clinging to military planes as they took off were horrifying.