Taliban kill IS leader behind Kabul airport bombingon April 25, 2023 at 11:04 pm

The Islamic State mastermind believed to have been responsible for the 2021 bombing at Kabul’s airport has been killed by the Taliban, US officials have said.

The August 2021 bombing killed 170 civilians and 13 US troops as people were trying to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

US officials told BBC’s US news partner CBS that the leader died weeks ago, but it took time to confirm his death.

His name has not been released.

US officials said they determined through intelligence gathering and monitoring of the region that the leader had died, though they did not provide further details on how they learned that he was responsible for the bombing.

“Experts in the government are at high confidence that this individual…was indeed the key individual responsible,” a senior US official told CBS.

It is unclear whether the leader was targeted by the Taliban or if he was killed during ongoing fighting between the Islamic State and the Taliban.

On Monday, the US began notifying families of the deceased troops about the death of the IS leader.

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.

Among the casualties were two British nationals and the child of a British national, the UK government said at the time.

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.

The Biden Administration was criticised both at home and abroad in the aftermath of the US pull-out of Afghanistan.

Many had expressed anger over the abandonment of Afghans and of US weaponry, and one US Marine injured in the blast described the pull-out as a “catastrophe”.