The planner of the Kabul airport bombing that left 13 US troops and round 170 civilians lifeless because the Biden administration lastly withdrew American forces from the nation has been killed by the Taliban.
The suspected mastermind of the bloody 2021 suicide assault was a pacesetter within the Islamic State in Afghanistan, often known as ISIS-Okay, unnamed Biden administration officers instructed The Washington Post.
The officers didn’t identify the person or give any particulars on how they had been killed with a purpose to shield the US authorities’s intelligence gathering skills within the area, mentioned the newspaper.
The bombing occurred on 26 August 2021 outdoors the gates to Hamid Karzai International Airport the place crowds had been packed in attempting to get onto evacuation flights within the wake of the Afghan authorities’s collapse to the Taliban.
Officials say that the US didn’t 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 instructed 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 assault was the deadliest enemy strike in opposition to US forces since August 2011 when a Chinook helicopter was shot down killing 30 American troops onboard.
The officers say they realized of the killing shortly after it occurred however took time to verify of it earlier than they started to tell the households of the US troops killed within 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 mentioned.
The US troops killed had been 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.
