Marine snipers posted up near Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport did not have an opportunity to take out the suicide bomber responsible for the attack on the airport during the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, US Central Command determined in a report released Monday, finding that the bombing was “not preventable.”
The Biden administration reopened its investigation into the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing, which killed 13 US service members and about 170 Afghan civilians at Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate, after multiple Marines alleged that they spotted a man outside the crowded evacuation point that fit the description of a suspected ISIS-K terrorist — but were told not to shoot him.
“The terrorist attack at Abbey Gate was not preventable at the tactical level without degrading the mission to maximize the number of evacuees,” read a statement released by CENTCOM on the report’s findings, which echoed the military’s initial findings in the months after the deadly blast.
“The suicide bomber was not previously identified in the crowd, nor was there an opportunity for service members to engage him prior to the attack,” the CENTCOM review found.
CENTCOM identified Abdul Rahman al-Logari as the terrorist who wore and detonated the suicide vest stuffed with 20 pounds of explosives packed with ball bearings.
Al-Logari had been released by the Taliban from a detention facility at Bagram Air Base, which the US hastily abandoned months before the bombing.
“While I’m pleased my investigation forced the Biden administration to reopen their investigation into the Abbey Gate attack that led to the deaths of 13 US servicemembers and the injury of 45, it should not have taken this long to get answers,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said in a statement, accusing the administration of “sitting on critical information about what happened during the emergency evacuation from Afghanistan.”
“It is clear there are many more questions to be answered,” the Texas Republican added.
The investigation was reopened after pressure from McCaul’s committee, which is conducting its own probe into the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“If congressional Democrats had fulfilled their constitutional obligations and conducted oversight of what happened more than two years ago, much of this information could have come to light then and saved years of anguish and speculation for many,” McCaul said.
“This report confirmed what witnesses have told this committee: the Taliban was executing civilians outside the airport. The executions caused mass chaos around the airport as large and desperate crowds of civilians sought to flee, creating a deadly operating environment for U.S. servicemembers at the gates amid significant ISIS-K threats,” he added.
“The report also finally reveals the identity of the Abbey Gate bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an ISIS-K terrorist who was freed from the Bagram prison by the Taliban.”
Some Marines had suspected that a “bald man in black” spotted in the crowd outside the Kabul airport was a potential threat the morning of the bombing. But military officials – using facial recognition technology – determined in their report that that individual was not al-Logari.
“The battalion commander exercised sound military judgement to conclude that the ‘bald man in black’ was not a lawful military target,” a US official on the 12-person review team said.
“Positive identification of the bomber prior to the attack would have been improbable, given the timeline and the density of the crowd,” another Army review team member said.
Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews told McCaul’s committee last March that he believed he saw the suicide bomber responsible for the attack before the bombing but was denied permission to shoot the man because “leadership did not have the engagement authority for us.”
“Pointedly … we asked [the battalion commander] if we could shoot,” Vargas-Andrews told lawmakers. “Our battalion commander said, and I quote: ‘I don’t know.’”
Vargas-Andrews, who lost an arm and a leg in the blast, was one of the roughly 45 troops who were injured but survived.
Another US Marine, Tristan Hirsch, told the Enterprise-Record a year after the attack that a man fitting a CIA description of a potential terrorist would “show up and leave” the airport perimeter on multiple occasions “the day prior and the day [of]” the bombing.
“A friend of mine who was a sniper racked back his rifle and was ready to kill the guy,” Hirsch told the newspaper. “We asked for permission and the reply was, ‘Let me get a military judge to see if it’s legal.’”
The military review found it “unlikely that an IED test run occurred outside Abbey Gate” prior to the attack, and dismissed allegations that there was any confusion over whether the suspicious individual or individuals outside the airport should have been engaged.
“Any portrayal of these events showing the battalion commander did not understand these events [is] just not supported by the evidence,” a US official involved in the investigation said.
“It is clear [the battalion commander] did not approve the snipers to engage the ‘bald man in black,’ and it was clear that this decision was understood,” another official added.
The report praised US Marines for being “vigilant in their duties” leading up to the bombing.
