New York: The Taliban government has killed the alleged mastermind of a devastating suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces in 2021, media reports said, citing US officials.
The bomber detonated among packed crowds at the airport’s perimeter as they tried to flee Afghanistan on August 26, 2021. The blast killed some 170 Afghans and 13 US troops who were securing the airport for the traumatic exit.
It was one of the deadliest bombings in Afghanistan in recent years, and prompted a wave of criticism of President Joe Biden’s decision to pull American forces out of the country nearly 20 years after the US invasion.
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 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 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.
