Four months after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed scores of individuals, together with 13 American service members, exterior the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, US and international intelligence officers have pieced collectively a profile of the assailant.
Military commanders say they’re utilizing that info to give attention to an Islamic State group cell that they consider was concerned within the assault, together with its management and foot troopers. The cell members might be among the many first insurgents struck by armed MQ-9 Reaper drones flying missions over Afghanistan from a base within the Persian Gulf. The United States has not carried out any airstrikes within the nation because the final American troops left August 30.
The assault on the airport’s Abbey Gate unfolded 4 days earlier, through the frenzied closing days of the most important noncombatant evacuation ever performed by the US navy. It was one of many deadliest assaults of the 20-year warfare in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State group recognized the suicide bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari. US officers stated he was a former engineering pupil who was one among a number of thousand militants free of a minimum of two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized management of Kabul August 15. The Taliban emptied the amenities indiscriminately, releasing not solely their very own imprisoned members but additionally fighters from Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-Ok, the group’s department in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nemesis.
Al-Logari was not unknown to the Americans. In 2017, the CIA tipped off Indian intelligence brokers that he was plotting a suicide bombing in New Delhi, US officers stated. Indian authorities foiled the assault and turned al-Logari over to the CIA.
The Parwan jail at Bagram Airfield and the Pul-e-Charkhi jail close to Kabul have been the Afghan authorities’s two major high-security prisons. Al-Logari hung out in each prisons, US officers stated, however it’s unclear how he linked up with the ISIS-Ok assault cell in Kabul, or why and the way he got here to be the Abbey Gate bomber.
In the months because the assault, US intelligence analysts and navy officers say they’ve targeted on studying extra in regards to the ISIS-Ok strike cell and any future assaults it could be plotting in opposition to the West.
This article initially appeared in The New York Times.
