The Taliban, the Islamist extremist group in Afghanistan’s government, killed the leader of ISIS-K, the Afghan division of ISIS, who masterminded the terrorist attack carried out on August 26, 2021 at Kabul airport: in more than 180 civilians, US military and members of the Taliban were killed in the attack.
The news was given by the United States government, which citing intelligence sources said the killing would have taken place in early April. The name of the ISIS-K leader was not disclosed and no further details on the operation were disclosed: it is not known, for example, if he was killed in a targeted attack by the Taliban or if during a clash armed between the two groups.
The Kabul airport bombing occurred just days after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. It was carried out by a suicide bomber, who blew himself up near Abbey Gate, an access located in the eastern part of the airport. The bomber was later identified as Abdul Rahman al Logari.
In those days, there were hundreds of civilians, locals and foreigners, in the airport area who were desperately trying to flee the country after the Taliban took over. The attack was immediately claimed by ISIS-K (or ISKP, or Khorasan Province of the Islamic State), a terrorist group that is enemy of both the Taliban and al Qaeda. It was founded in 2014 by Pakistani Taliban disillusioned with their group, and in previous years it had been responsible for other very serious attacks in Afghanistan.
Already a few days before the attack, the United States and the United Kingdom had invited their citizens to stay away from the airport, precisely because of the high risk of attacks by ISIS-K.
170 Afghans and 13 US soldiers were killed in the attack: the US troops definitively left the country a few days later, on August 31, after twenty years of presence. The Taliban have since consolidated their power in Afghanistan, although ISIS-K has strengthened its presence across the territory, expanding beyond the eastern provinces, where it is most numerous, and has carried out many other bombings of buildings government agencies, schools and mosques, especially in Kabul.
– Read also: What is ISIS-K, explained