4 months after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed ratings of other people, together with 13 American provider contributors, outdoor the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, US and overseas intelligence officers have pieced in combination a profile of the assailant.
Army commanders say they’re the use of that knowledge to concentrate on an Islamic State crew cellular that they imagine used to be concerned within the assault, together with its management and foot infantrymen. The cellular contributors may well be a number of the first insurgents struck by way of armed MQ-9 Reaper drones flying missions over Afghanistan from a base within the Persian Gulf. The USA has now not performed any airstrikes within the nation because the ultimate American troops left August 30.
The assault on the airport’s Abbey Gate spread out 4 days previous, right through the frenzied ultimate days of the most important noncombatant evacuation ever performed by way of the USA army. It used to be one of the vital deadliest assaults of the 20-year struggle in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State crew known the suicide bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari. US officers mentioned he used to be a former engineering pupil who used to be certainly one of a number of thousand militants free of no less than two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized regulate of Kabul August 15. The Taliban emptied the amenities indiscriminately, liberating now not best their very own imprisoned contributors but additionally warring parties from Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-Ok, the crowd’s department in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nemesis.
Al-Logari used to be now not unknown to the American citizens. In 2017, the CIA tipped off Indian intelligence brokers that he used to be plotting a suicide bombing in New Delhi, US officers mentioned. Indian government foiled the assault and grew to become al-Logari over to the CIA.
The Parwan jail at Bagram Airfield and the Pul-e-Charkhi jail close to Kabul had been the Afghan govt’s two primary high-security prisons. Al-Logari hung out in each prisons, US officers mentioned, however it’s unclear how he connected up with the ISIS-Ok assault cellular in Kabul, or why and the way he got here to be the Abbey Gate bomber.
Within the months because the assault, US intelligence analysts and armed forces officers say they’ve excited by finding out extra concerning the ISIS-Ok strike cellular and any long term assaults it can be plotting towards the West.
This newsletter initially seemed in The New York Instances.