IS 'mastermind' of 2021 Kabul airport bomb attack killed by Taliban, claims US media

Washington: The alleged mastermind of a horrific suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces in 2021 has been killed by the Taliban administration, said American media on Tuesday, citing US authorities.

The leader of the Islamic State cell that planned the attack was killed by Taliban authorities in recent weeks, a senior US administration official told Politico on condition of anonymity.

The blast, which took place on 26 August, 2021, killed some 170 Afghans and 13 US troops who were securing the airport for the traumatic exit.

One of the deadliest attacks to hit Afghanistan in recent memory, it led to a surge of criticism of President Joe Biden’s plan to withdraw American forces from the nation over 20 years after the US invasion.

According to Politico, the United States had not been involved in the raid, and would not say when it took place or identify the alleged IS member killed, citing “sensitivities.”

But the official said that the target “was someone who remained a key plotter, an overseer of plotting for ISIS-K,” referring to Islamic State Khorasan, the branch of the group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The official said US intelligence has been working to confirm the killing, and that the Biden administration has held off announcing it until the families of the 13 US troops could be told.

“We are not partnering with the Taliban, but we do think the outcome is a significant one,” the senior official told Politico.

The pullout, ending on 30 August, 2021, saw Taliban fighters sweep aside Western-trained Afghan forces in just weeks, forcing the last US troops to mount the desperate evacuation from Kabul’s airport.

An unprecedented military airlift operation managed to get more than 120,000 people out of the country in a matter of days.

Biden has long defended his decision to leave Afghanistan, which critics have said helped cause the catastrophic collapse of Afghan forces and paved the way for the Taliban to return to power two decades after their first government was toppled.

Nothing “would have changed the trajectory” of the exit and “ultimately, President Biden refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a war that should have ended for the United States long ago,” the White House National Security Council said in a report to Congress earlier this month.

A recent Washington Post report citing leaked Pentagon documents said the US believes that since the withdrawal, Afghanistan is becoming a “staging ground” for the Islamic State group.

The Taliban and IS have long engaged in a turf war in Afghanistan, and experts have pointed to the jihadist group as the biggest security challenge for the new Afghan government going forward.

With inputs from agencies

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