The ISIS-K leader who planned the deadly 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul international airport’s Abbey Gate was killed by the Taliban, according to the National Security Council.
The administration didn’t name the ISIS-K leader, but John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, called him “the mastermind of the horrific attack,” which was carried out in the final days of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Kirby did not specify when the Taliban killed the ISIS-K leader, but called it one in a “series of high-profile leadership losses” that ISIS-K has suffered this year.
The terrorist who carried out the suicide bombing, Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri, had been released from prison only days earlier when the Taliban took control of the area. The attack left 13 US service members and more than 170 Afghans dead.
ISIS-K stands for ISIS-Khorasan, the terror organization’s affiliate that is active in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has tried to crackdown on ISIS-K throughout the country, but has not succeeded in destroying the terror organization.
Last month, Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command, told US lawmakers that the terror group had increased its attacks in the region and was trying to plan attacks outside of Afghanistan against the US homeland and American interests abroad.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, praised the killing of the ISIS-K leader while arguing that the Biden administration remains responsible for the failures that led to the attack at Abbey Gate.
“Any time a terrorist is taken off the board is a good day. But this doesn’t diminish the Biden administration’s culpability for the failures that led to the attack at Abbey Gate, and will…
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