Taliban Kill Head of ISIS Cell That Bombed Kabul Airport
WASHINGTON — The Taliban have killed the leader of the Islamic State cell responsible for the suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians, four senior American officials said on Tuesday.
The administration on Monday began calling relatives of the American troops who died in the attack to tell them that the leader of the terrorist cell had been killed by Taliban security forces in recent weeks.
The American officials said that U.S. intelligence analysts became aware in early April that the mastermind of the attack, whom they declined to identify, had died in a Taliban operation in Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the Taliban were specifically targeting the insurgent or he was killed in one of the increasing number of attacks between Taliban and Islamic State fighters, the officials said.
The officials said that based on classified intelligence reports — most likely from informants, electronic intercepts or information from allied spy services — analysts concluded with “high confidence” that the chief plotter of the airport attack had been killed. But the officials offered no evidence to support that conclusion or other details about his purported death.
Source: The New York Times
