The ISIS leader responsible for planning the 2021 attack on Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members has been killed by the Taliban, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed in CBS News Tuesday night.
Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told CBS News in a statement that the Defense Department could confirm he was killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan “early April,” adding that the U.S. “they were not involved in this operation.”
This comes after senior Biden administration officials confirmed the IS leader’s death earlier Tuesday, but said the White House would not release the man’s name, describing him as the ” certificate” of the assault on Abbey Gate, one of the main entry points. for those trying to evacuate Afghanistan during the US withdrawal.
Officials learned of his death in Afghanistan weeks ago, but said it had taken some time to confirm.
“Government experts have a high degree of confidence that this individual … was in fact the key individual responsible” for the attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, 2021, a senior administration official told CBS News. More than 100 Afghan civilians were also killed in the suicide attack.
The Taliban did not inform the US of the death, but made the decision based on their own intelligence gathering and monitoring of ongoing threats and actors in the region.
“This was a Taliban operation. We didn’t do it in conjunction with them or anything for him,” the US official said. US law prohibits military cooperation and the sharing of military intelligence with the Taliban.
Asked why the US government was certain this was the individual responsible for the attack and how that determination was made, the official said he could not provide further details.
CBS News learned Monday that the Pentagon had begun notifying the families of the dead service members who died in the blast. The White House asked CBS to withhold its reporting until the 13 families have been directly notified.
Darin Hoover, father of Marine Sgt. Taylor Hoover, said he was notified by the Marine Corps on Tuesday.
“They couldn’t tell me any details of the operation, but they did say that their sources are very reliable, and they’ve gotten it from several different sources that this individual was killed,” Hoover said in an interview Tuesday.
“This may be the type of circumstance where we normally don’t say anything. But we think it’s important to offer this, especially to families who have obviously suffered the unimaginable,” the senior administration official told CBS News. “And no one expects this to end the suffering they experience when they lose a loved one.”
Word comes of the death of the ISIS leader Mr. Biden launches his 2024 re-election campaign. In 2020, he campaigned on a vow to end the war in Afghanistan, but also presented himself as a leader capable of restoring competition to the running of the government and to US foreign affairs.
The attack on the airport, along with images of the hasty and chaotic retreat and later a meeting with the families of the fallen service members that at times turned confrontational, damaged that perception and caused his general approval rating plummeted.
Administration officials rejected any suggestion that the timing of the announcement coincided with the president’s re-election plans. One said the timing was purely coincidental.
President Biden vowed retribution for the attack, saying in August 2021: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Three days later, however, a US military drone strike aimed to kill ISIS-K leaders ended up killing 10 civiliansincluding seven children, the Pentagon later admitted.
Cheryl Rex, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, said this incident makes her question the identity of the individual killed and the veracity of the administration’s claims about his death.
“They told us earlier that they had already killed the person who was in charge, and then when they came back with the report saying it was a civilian with his children,” Rex said. “I would like to see them jailed. They have 13 counts of murder on their hands.”
Military leaders initially said the strike was carried out based on an imminent threat to US personnel following the airport bombing. After US Central Command concluded that civilians had been killed, senior officials called it “a terrible mistake” but said they had relied on credible intelligence of an imminent threat to the airport .
ISIS-K has it carried out regular attacks against the Taliban regime that regained power in Afghanistan when the US-led military alliance withdrew from the country in the summer of 2021. The devastating attack on the airport came as US and Western forces used the installation as a point of coordination and exit for the chaotic retreat. .
Eleanor Watson and Arden Farhi contributed to this report.
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