WASHINGTON (AP) — The Taliban have killed the senior Islamic State group chief behind the August 2021 suicide bombing exterior the Kabul airport that left 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans useless, in response to 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 throughout the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. And people members of the family shared the data in a personal group messaging chat, in response to 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 performed a sequence of operations in opposition to the Islamic State group, in response to one of many officers. The Taliban on the time weren’t conscious of the id of the particular person they killed, the official added.
Darin Hoover, the daddy of Employees Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, mentioned the Marines supplied solely restricted info to him Tuesday and didn’t determine the Islamic State chief or give the circumstances of his demise.
Hoover is amongst a bunch of 12 Gold Star households which have stored in contact because the bombing, supporting each other and sharing info by way of 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, instructed the AP it was by way of 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 demise 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 deliver 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 attempting on Aug. 26, 2021, to get onto one of many crowded flights in another country after the Taliban takeover. The scene of desperation rapidly was one in all horror when a suicide bomber attacked. The Islamic State group claimed accountability.
The blast at Abbey Gate got here hours after Western officers warned of a significant assault, urging individuals to go away the airport. However that recommendation went largely unheeded by Afghans determined to flee the nation in the previous few 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 prime menace militarily. The group has continued to hold out assaults in Afghanistan because the Taliban takeover, particularly in opposition to the nation’s minority teams.
After the Trump administration reached a 2020 take care of the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Biden administration adopted by way of on that settlement in 2021, there had been hope in Washington that the Taliban’s want for worldwide recognition and help for the nation’s impoverished inhabitants may 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 support and well being businesses.
Nonetheless, 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 primarily based 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 almost twenty years, and the return to energy of the Taliban. Within the aftermath, President Joe Biden directed {that a} broad assessment study “each side of this from prime 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.
Information 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 tough chapters of his presidency. The disastrous drawdown was, on the time, the largest 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.