WASHINGTON — The Taliban have killed the senior Islamic State group chief behind the August 2021 suicide bombing outdoors the Kabul airport that left 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans lifeless, in line with the daddy of a Marine killed within the assault who was briefed Tuesday by navy officers.
Over the weekend, the U.S. navy started to tell households of the 11 Marines, the sailor and the soldier killed within the blast at Abbey Gate through the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. And people members of the family shared the data in a non-public group messaging chat, in line with the mom of one other Marine.
The account from the households to The Related Press was confirmed by three U.S. officers and a senior congressional aide, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate particulars that had not but been made public.
The IS chief, whose id has not but been launched, was killed in southern Afghanistan in early April because the Taliban carried out a sequence of operations in opposition to the Islamic State group, in line with one of many officers. The Taliban on the time weren’t conscious of the id of the individual they killed, the official added.
Darin Hoover, the daddy of Workers Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, mentioned the Marines supplied solely restricted data to him Tuesday and didn’t establish the Islamic State chief or give the circumstances of his dying.
Hoover is amongst a gaggle of 12 Gold Star households which have stored in contact for the reason that bombing, supporting each other and sharing data by the messaging chat. The chat was created by Cheryl Rex, the mom of Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, who died within the blast.
Rex, who has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s dealing with of the withdrawal, informed the AP it was by the chat group that they had been knowledgeable late Monday in regards to the killing as they awaited official affirmation from U.S. navy officers.
Hoover mentioned he and his son’s mom, Kelly Henson, have spent the previous yr and a half grieving the dying of the 31-year-old Marine Corps workers sergeant and praying for accountability from the Biden administration for the dealing with of the withdrawal.
The killing of the unidentified Islamic State group member, Hoover mentioned, does nothing to assist them.
“No matter occurs, it’s not going to carry Taylor again and I perceive that,” he mentioned in a telephone name. “About the one factor his mother and I can do now’s be an advocate for him. All we would like is the reality. And we’re not getting it. That’s the irritating half.”
His son and the opposite fallen service members had been amongst these screening the hundreds of Afghans frantically making an attempt on Aug. 26, 2021, to get onto one of many crowded flights in a foreign country after the Taliban takeover. The scene of desperation rapidly become certainly one of horror when a suicide bomber attacked. The Islamic State group claimed duty.
The blast at Abbey Gate got here hours after Western officers warned of a serious assault, urging folks to depart the airport. However that recommendation went largely unheeded by Afghans determined to flee the nation in the previous couple of days of an American-led evacuation earlier than the U.S. formally ended its 20-year presence.
The Afghanistan-based offshoot of the Islamic State, with as much as 4,000 members, is the Taliban’s most bitter enemy and high menace militarily. The group has continued to hold out assaults in Afghanistan for the reason that Taliban takeover, particularly in opposition to the nation’s minority teams.
After the Trump administration reached a 2020 cope with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Biden administration adopted by on that settlement in 2021, there had been hope in Washington that the Taliban’s need for worldwide recognition and help for the nation’s impoverished inhabitants would possibly reasonable their habits.
However relations between the U.S. and the Taliban have deteriorated considerably since they imposed draconian new measures banning ladies from faculty and excluding girls from working for worldwide help and well being businesses.
Nevertheless, a line of communication nonetheless exists between the 2 sides, led by the U.S. particular envoy for Afghanistan, Tom West. West’s contacts are primarily with Taliban officers in Kabul and never with the group’s extra ideological wing based mostly in Kandahar.
The August 2021 pullout of U.S. troops led to the swift collapse of the Afghan authorities and navy, which the U.S. had supported for practically 20 years, and the return to energy of the Taliban. Within the aftermath, President Joe Biden directed {that a} broad assessment look at “each side of this from high to backside” and it was launched earlier this month.
The Biden administration within the publicly launched model of the assessment largely laid blame on President Donald Trump for the lethal and chaotic 2021 withdrawal, which was punctuated by the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate.
News of the killing got here on the identical day that Biden formally introduced he’ll search a second time period as president, providing a reminder of one of the vital troublesome chapters of his presidency. The disastrous drawdown was, on the time, the most important disaster that the comparatively new administration had confronted. It left sharp questions on Biden and his crew’s competence and expertise — the dual pillars central to his marketing campaign for the White Home.
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Related Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Tara Copp and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.
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