Taliban kills IS mastermind behind Kabul airport bombing

Nepal Views

Kathmandu: Taliban fighters have killed the senior Islamic State (IS) group leader behind the deadly suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in August 2021.

US officials say the IS mastermind thought to have planned the devastating 2021 bombing at Kabul airport has been killed by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. He was killed weeks ago but it took time to confirm his death, US officials told BBC news partner CBS.

The IS leader, whose identity has not yet been released, was killed in southern Afghanistan in early April as the Taliban conducted a series of operations against the group, according to one of the officials.

The Taliban fighters at the time were not aware of the identity of the person they killed, the official added.

The blast at the Abbey Gate entrance of the Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26 of 2021 left about 170 Afghans and 13 US service members dead during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

The blast came hours after Western governments warned their citizens to stay away from Kabul International Airport, because of an imminent threat of an attack by IS-K, the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State group.

It happened around 18:00 local time on 26 August 2021 at the Abbey Gate to the airport, when a suicide bomber walked into the middle of families waiting outside the gate.

Huge crowds had been gathering in the area, hoping to be accepted on to an evacuation flight as US troops pulled out of Afghanistan.

The US carried out a drone strike in Kabul days later, saying it had targeted a suicide bomber, only to admit that the missile had killed 10 civilians, including seven children.

They later offered a $10m (£8m) reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of those responsible for the attack, or for the capture of ISIS-K leader Sanaullah Ghafari.