{"id":12442,"date":"2021-08-28T06:25:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-28T13:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12442"},"modified":"2021-08-28T06:26:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T13:26:56","slug":"as-u-s-troops-searched-afghans-a-bomber-in-the-crowd-moved-in-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12442","title":{"rendered":"“As U.S. Troops Searched Afghans, a Bomber in the Crowd Moved In”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Helene Cooper,\u00a0<\/span>Eric Schmitt<\/span> and Thomas Gibbons-Neff,\u00a0Aug. 28, 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials are still piecing together the chain of events in the attack that killed scores of people, including 13 U.S. service members, outside the Kabul airport.<\/em><\/p>\n\"Estimates<\/picture>\n

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Estimates of the total dead and wounded had varied, with local health officials saying that as many as 170 people were killed.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Victor J. Blue for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 The suicide bomber waited until the last possible moment, U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n

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A crowd straining to get into Hamid Karzai International Airport had converged on Abbey Gate, a main entryway patrolled by Marines and other service members. The troops knew that they could be targeted in an attack; just the day before, the State Department had warned of a \u201ccredible\u201d threat at three gates at the airport, where more than 5,000 American troops had helped to evacuate more than 100,000 people in less than two weeks. Abbey Gate was on the list.<\/p>\n

Airport security had closed two of the gates, but decided to leave Abbey Gate open, U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n

They also said that, earlier in the day, Taliban commanders and fighters patrolling checkpoints along the airport route twice pushed back surging crowds, but they came back again.<\/p>\n

That third time, someone else came with them.<\/p>\n

At 5:48 p.m., the bomber, wearing a 25-pound explosive vest under clothing, walked up to the group of Americans who were frisking people hoping to enter the complex. He waited, officials said, until just before he was about to be searched by the American troops. And then he detonated the bomb, which was unusually large for a suicide vest, killing himself and igniting an attack that would leave dozens of people dead, including 13 American service members.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is close-up war \u2014 the breath of the person you are searching is upon you,\u201d Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of United States Central Command, said on Thursday after the attack, describing the face-to-face contact between Marines at the airport gate and Afghans they must search before allowing them to enter.<\/p>\n

Pentagon officials said they were still piecing together the chain of events that took place at Abbey Gate on Thursday. There will be after-action reviews and storyboards with detailed lists of what led up to that moment. There will be questions: Why were so many service members grouped so close together? How did the bomber evade the Taliban checkpoints? Did someone let him through?<\/p>\n

U.S. military forces conducted their first reprisal strike in Afghanistan since the attack on Friday, \u201can over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation\u201d in the Nangarhar Province \u201cagainst an ISIS-K planner,\u201d said Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, referring to the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State that claimed responsibility for Thursday\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitial indications are that we killed the target,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know of no civilian casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the scope of the damage from Thursday\u2019s bombing became clearer, health officials in Kabul raised the death toll, saying at least 170 people had been killed. Afghans seeking to escape Taliban rule continued to stream to the airport on Friday, but the size of the crowd was estimated in the hundreds, down from the thousands who were there when the blast occurred. The airport remained largely locked down, although evacuation flights continued<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just after 2 p.m. Friday, as another gray-tailed U.S. aircraft lifted into the sky from the airport, this one carrying the flag-draped coffins of the 13 Americans, the anguish from Thursday\u2019s bombing spread from Kabul to Kansas. At the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, service members were bracing for the ritual of dressing and preparing yet another group of American troops killed in Afghanistan.\u201cI\u2019m never been one for politics and I\u2019m not going to start now,\u201d Marilyn Soviak, the sister of Maxton Soviak, a Navy corpsman from Ohio who was among the dead, posted on Instagram. \u201cWhat I will say is that my beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n

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