A Taliban-led operation has taken out the ISIS terrorist responsible for killing 13 American service members during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon.
The deadly suicide bombing, which also killed upwards of 170 Afghan civilians, took place outside Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed in a Tuesday night statement that the ISIS-K operative who directed the attack was killed by the Taliban in early April.
US officials declined to name the terrorist and it was unclear whether the operative was being specifically targeted by the Taliban or was incidentally killed in one of the frequent clashes between the Taliban and ISIS.
Biden administration officials offered no other details about the terrorist’s purported death, and said they were not notified of the operation by the Taliban, but rather learned of it through US intelligence streams, Fox News reported.
The New York Times reports that administration officials on Monday began calling relatives of the US troops who died in the bombing to inform them the bomb plotter had been killed by Taliban forces.
But family members indicated that they were “frustrated” with lack of responsibility Biden administration officials were taking for the deadly attack and the limited information they were willing to provide.
The ISIS terrorist responsible for the airport attack was killed. AP“They couldn’t give me his name; they couldn’t tell me the details of the operation,” Darin Hoover, the father of slain Marine Corps. Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, told the outlet.
“I want the administration to take some accountability and responsibility for this,” Hoover added. “Say, ‘We screwed up. It’s not going to happen again.’ It can’t happen again. He gave his life for this. This is what he wanted to do, and this is what happened — and now we’re all being treated like garbage.”
Former President Donald Trump, President Biden’s possible 2024 re-election opponent, has lambasted the administration in recent days for its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling it “perhaps the most embarrassing event in the history of our country” on Monday.
“Biden has totally humiliated our Nation on the world stage — starting with the Afghanistan disaster,” Trump said in a statement.
There were 13 US service members killed in the attack. APRep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, celebrated the killing of the unnamed ISIS leader on Tuesday but noted that it doesn’t absolve Biden of the “failures” that led to the suicide bombing.
“If these reports are true, any time a terrorist is taken off the board is a good day,” McCaul, who is leading one of Congress’ investigations into the Afghanistan withdrawal, told the New York Times.
“But this doesn’t diminish the Biden administration’s culpability for the failures that led to the attack at Abbey Gate, and will in no way deter the committee’s investigation,” McCaul added.
It has previously been reported that the suicide bomber who carried out the attack had been a prisoner released from Bagram Air Base after the US abandoned the facility and allowed the Taliban to take control of it.
Trump claims that under his withdrawal plans, the US would have maintained control of Bagram, Afghanistan’s largest airfield, in order to keep China in check.
