The planner of the Kabul airport bombing that left 13 US troops and around 170 civilians dead as the Biden administration finally withdrew American forces from the country has been killed by the Taliban.
The suspected mastermind of the bloody 2021 suicide attack was a leader in the Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K, unnamed Biden administration officials told The Washington Post.
The officials did not name the individual or give any details on how they were killed in order to protect the US government’s intelligence gathering abilities in the region, said the newspaper.
The bombing took place on 26 August 2021 outside the gates to Hamid Karzai International Airport where crowds were packed in trying to get onto evacuation flights in the wake of the Afghan government’s collapse to the Taliban.
Officials say that the US did not coordinate with the Taliban, whose fighters carried out the killing in “recent weeks.”
“We have become aware in recent weeks that the ISIS-K terrorist most responsible for that horrific attack of August 26, 2021, has now been killed in a Taliban operation,” a senior official told ABC News on Tuesday.
“We did not conduct this operation directly with the Taliban. We are not partnering with the Taliban. But we do think the outcome is a significant one.”
The attack was the deadliest enemy strike against US forces since August 2011 when a Chinook helicopter was shot down killing 30 American troops onboard.
The officials say they learned of the killing shortly after it happened but took time to make sure of it before they began to inform the families of the US troops killed in the bombing.
“It took a bit of time to go to a high level of confidence that this indeed was an individual who had been removed in the operation. And we of course we wanted to get that right before notifying families,” the official said.
The US troops killed were Marine Lance Cpl David Espinoza, 20; Marine Sgt Nicole Gee, 23; Marine Staff Sgt Darin Taylor Hoover, 31; Army Staff Sgt Ryan Knauss, 23; Marine Cpl Hunter Lopez, 22; Marine Lance Cpl Dylan Merola, 20; Marine Lance Cpl Rylee McCollum, 20; Marine Lance Cpl Kareem Nikoui, 20; Marine Cpl Daegan Page, 23; Marine Sgt Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25; Marine Cpl Humberto Sanchez, 22; Marine Lance Cpl Jared Schmitz, 20; and Navy Hospitalman Maxton Soviak, 22.
