U.S. Military Focusing on ISIS Cell Behind Attack at Kabul Airport

WASHINGTON — Four months aft an Islamic State termination bomber killed scores of people, including 13 American work members, extracurricular the airdrome successful Kabul, Afghanistan, U.S. and overseas quality officials person pieced unneurotic a illustration of the assailant.

Military commanders accidental they are utilizing that accusation to absorption connected an Islamic State compartment that they judge was progressive successful the attack, including its enactment and ft soldiers. The compartment members could beryllium among the archetypal insurgents struck by equipped MQ-9 Reaper drones flying missions implicit Afghanistan from a basal successful the Persian Gulf. The United States has not carried retired immoderate airstrikes successful the state since the past American troops near connected Aug. 30.

The onslaught astatine the airport’s Abbey Gate unfolded 4 days earlier, during the frenzied last days of the largest noncombatant evacuation ever conducted by the U.S. military. It was 1 of the deadliest attacks of the 20-year warfare successful Afghanistan.

The Islamic State identified the termination bomber arsenic Abdul Rahman Al-Logari. American officials accidental helium was a erstwhile engineering pupil who was 1 of respective 1000 militants freed from astatine slightest 2 high-security prisons aft the Taliban seized power of Kabul connected Aug. 15. The Taliban emptied the facilities indiscriminately, releasing not lone their ain imprisoned members but besides fighters from Islamic State Khorasan, oregon ISIS-K, the group’s subdivision successful Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nemesis.

“It’s hard to explicate what the reasoning was successful letting retired radical who were a menace to the Taliban,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a elder U.N. counterterrorism official, said astatine a caller information league successful Doha, Qatar.

Mr. Logari was not chartless to the Americans. In 2017, the C.I.A. tipped disconnected Indian quality agents that helium was plotting a termination bombing successful New Delhi, U.S. officials said. Indian authorities foiled the onslaught and turned Mr. Logari implicit to the C.I.A., which sent him to Afghanistan to service clip astatine the Parwan situation astatine Bagram Air Base. He remained determination until helium was freed amid the chaos aft Kabul fell.

Eleven days later, connected Aug. 26 astatine 5:48 p.m., the bomber, wearing a 25-pound explosive vest nether his clothing, walked up to a radical of American troops who were frisking those hoping to participate Hamid Karzai International Airport. He waited, subject officials said, until conscionable earlier helium was astir to beryllium searched earlier detonating the bomb, which was unusually ample for a termination vest, sidesplitting himself and astir 200 others.

The onslaught raised ISIS-K’s planetary profile, and positioned it some arsenic a large menace to the Taliban’s ability to govern the state and, according to American officials, arsenic the astir imminent violent hazard to the United States coming retired of Afghanistan.

“The radical has gained immoderate notoriety successful a mode that could beryllium rather compelling for them connected the transnational stage,” Christine Abizaid, the manager of the National Counterterrorism Center, said successful October astatine a nationalist information league successful Sea Island, Ga. “At the aforesaid time, they’re warring the Taliban. How that force-on-force engagement successful Afghanistan volition spell volition person immoderate defining characteristics astir what the transnational menace looks like.”

In October, Colin H. Kahl, the nether caput of defence for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that ISIS-K could beryllium capable to onslaught the United States sometime successful 2022. “We could spot ISIS-K make that capableness successful determination betwixt six and 12 months,” helium said.

The Parwan situation astatine Bagram and the Pul-e-Charkhi situation adjacent Kabul were the Afghan government’s 2 main high-security prisons. The United States built Parwan successful 2009 and transferred it to Afghan authorities power 3 years later.

On July 1, with small informing and nary nationalist ceremony, U.S. forces abandoned Bagram Air Base, the main hub for American subject operations. Six weeks later, connected Aug. 15, Taliban fighters swept into the base and threw unfastened the situation gates.

The Taliban killed 1 salient captive — a erstwhile apical person of the Islamic State successful Afghanistan, Omar Khalid Khorasani — and released much than 12,000 others, including astir 6,000 Taliban, 1,800 ISIS-K and astir 3 twelve Qaeda fighters, according to U.S. officials.

“The fiasco successful Afghanistan has enactment hundreds of terrorists backmost connected the street,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a erstwhile C.I.A. serviceman who ran President Barack Obama’s archetypal Afghanistan argumentation review.

One of them was Mr. Logari, the lad of an Afghan merchant who often visited India and Pakistan for business. Mr. Logari moved to India successful 2017 to survey engineering astatine Manav Rachna University adjacent New Delhi.

Recruited by ISIS-K, Mr. Logari was arrested successful narration to the New Delhi crippled and handed implicit to the C.I.A. by India’s overseas spy service, the Research and Analysis Wing, successful September 2017, according to Indian media reports that were confirmed by American officials. A C.I.A. spokesperson declined to comment.

Mr. Logari spent clip successful some the Pul-e-Charki and Parwan prisons, American officials said, but it is unclear however helium linked up with the ISIS-K onslaught compartment successful Kabul, oregon wherefore and however helium came to beryllium the Abbey Gate bomber.

Soon aft the attack, however, American officials and U.S. media reports disclosed that the bomber had been released from situation conscionable days earlier.

The Islamic State seized connected the spectacular quality of the bombing, boasting astir its size, determination and timing successful societal media posts, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media.

In the months since the attack, U.S. quality analysts and subject officials accidental they person focused connected learning much astir the ISIS-K onslaught cell, and immoderate aboriginal attacks it whitethorn beryllium plotting against the West.

Created six years agone by disaffected Pakistani Taliban fighters, the group’s ranks fell to astir 1,500 to 2,000 fighters past year, astir fractional that of its highest successful 2016 earlier U.S. airstrikes and Afghan commando raids took a toll, sidesplitting galore of its leaders. In June 2020, an ambitious caller commander, Shahab al-Muhajir, took implicit the radical and has been trying to enlistee Taliban fighters and different militants.

Even earlier the Abbey Gate bombing, ISIS-K had vastly accrued the gait of its attacks successful 2021, a United Nations study concluded successful June.

The unit has strained Afghanistan’s caller and untested authorities and raised reddish flags successful the West astir the group’s imaginable resurgence.

President Biden and his apical commanders person said the United States would transportation retired “over-the-horizon” strikes from a basal successful the United Arab Emirates against ISIS and Qaeda insurgents who endanger the United States.

Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the caput of the military’s Central Command, said successful aboriginal December that the departure of the U.S. subject and quality assets from Afghanistan had made tracking the groups harder but “not impossible.”

Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.