Tag Archive for: Kabul

‘It’s Bullsh*t’: Marine At Center Of New Afghanistan Probe Accuses Pentagon Of Covering Up Evidence

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A Marine at the center of a supplemental probe into the deadly suicide bombing during the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan accused the Pentagon of concealing information showing it could have been prevented.

Former Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews caused a stir after he testified in March 2023 that he had sights on an individual he and others on the ground believed to be the suicide bomber while in the guard tower next to Abbey Gate, but was denied permission to engage. After CENTCOM opened up a new probe into the incident to address his allegations and found nothing to corroborate them, the former sniper told the Daily Caller News Foundation he agreed the bomber suspect at the time was a “separate individual” from the man the Pentagon just identified as the perpetrator but stood by his testimony.

“That is the truth. For anyone to say that this wasn’t preventable when we had on the ground intel passed to us stating the threat, it’s bullshit. We were told that the bomber was headed to Abbey Gate in real time, we all knew that,” he told the DCNF.

“I believe that a lot has been covered up,” he added.

Vargas-Andrews lost two of his limbs in the bombing, which took the lives of 13 U.S. service members and killed and wounded dozens of Afghan civilians.

Marines stationed in and around the watchtower near Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate may have confused formal intelligence with “spot reports” made by service members in real time that had not been vetted, the secondary review found, according to The Washington Post.

“Over the past two years, some service members have claimed that they had the bomber in their sights, and they could have prevented the attack,” a U.S. official on the supplemental review team said on Friday, according to CNN. “But we now know that is not correct.”

While Vargas-Andrews disputed the finding, he did not dispute that the person Marines at the time believed to be the prime threat was not the eventual bomber, he told the Post.

The first investigation completed in November 2021 concluded a lone suicide bomber managed to bypass Taliban checkpoints but contained nothing to suggest the perpetrator had been identified or that a request to shoot traveled up the chain of command, interview logs show.

Investigators, “although as thorough as they could be,” told Vargas-Andrews and his team during the course of the secondary probe that photos of the bomber, which were taken while the sniper team was tracking threats, could not be retrieved from any facility in the Pentagon or a U.S. intelligence agency.

“They stated they combed through everything high and low,” he told the DCNF. “So what happened to those hundreds of photos, which are potential intelligence? That is a failure.”

Many photos Vargas-Andrews’ sniper team collected, and photos taken by other units, vanished during the course of the chaotic evacuation in August 2021, a person familiar with the investigation told the Post. Those included two individuals the snipers requested to shoot.

One individual nicknamed the “man in black,” due to his black headscarf and shaved head, was thought to be the suicide bomber, CNN reported.

Vargas told the DCNF the photo of the suspect referenced in the report came from a cell phone and was taken from the display on his team’s camera

CENTCOM’s secondary report identified the bomber as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari, an Islamic State (ISIS) operative whom the Taliban had recently released from prison, according to CNN. Cross-comparison of the figures in each photo — CENTCOM obtained al-Logari’s prison mugshot — “received the strongest negative possible rating” they depicted the same person, officials said.

Vargas-Andrews maintained he still had an opportunity to engage the bomber.

“I will stand by my testimony and what we experienced till the day I die,” Vargas-Andrews told the DCNF.

CENTCOM did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pentagon Won’t Respond To New Research Casting Doubt On Studies Supporting Military’s DEI Push

RELATED VIDEO: The Bridge – The true story about the Evacuation of Kabul, Afghanistan with Tyler Vargas-Andrews

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

65 Jihadis Identified as ‘National Security Risks’ were Granted Entry into the U.S. after the Fall of Afghanistan

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Is the Biden regime really just catastrophically incompetent, or did this operation go according to plan? It does so much to weaken the United States, can it be said with any certainty that this wasn’t another such operation?

EXCLUSIVE – 65 Afghan terrorists were let into the U.S. after Biden’s chaotic withdrawal: Prisoner freed by the Taliban and men who planted IEDs got through dire vetting processes

by Wills Robinson, DailyMail.com, August 13, 2023

Militants who left fingerprints on IEDs meant to kill Americans in Afghanistan and a prisoner freed by the Taliban were among more than 65 terrorists allowed into the United States after the catastrophic withdrawal.

Most of them could still be roaming the country, and the government cannot track them down.

The damning revelations made in a new book add to the laundry list of blunders from the Biden administration during and after the disastrous evacuation of Kabul in August 2021.

It has been two years since the two weeks of carnage at Hamid Karzai International Airport that led to the deaths of 13 American service members, hundreds of Afghans, and thousands left behind.

Yet the evidence of the U.S. government’s disastrous handling of the departure of troops after 20 years and the evacuation of allies is still coming to light.

Sixty-five individuals identified as ‘national security risks’ were granted entry into the U.S. in the 12 months after the withdrawal, Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson write in Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End.

The book also reveals how the Biden administration missed two chances to prevent the Kabul suicide attack and the dire impact of putting the Taliban in charge of security.

The dangerous individuals let into the U.S. included multiple men whose DNA was found on explosives defused by American forces.

Another was a prisoner ‘liberated’ by the Taliban while they were running riot across the war-torn country on the way to Kabul.

Despite assurances the Taliban wouldn’t surge to power and the US-backed Afghan government would hold, the capital toppled as the Western military left.

An Afghan-American interpreter even identified many Taliban fighters on the tarmac, ready to board flights bound for the U.S….

Read full article.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Family of Marine killed In Afghanistan stunned to learn snipers were ordered not to take out jihad suicide bomber

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Old Joe Biden’s woke and desperately corrupt military actively misled the family of one of the soldiers who was killed in the jihad attack.

An update on this story.

Family Of Marine Killed During Afghanistan Withdrawal Stunned To Learn Snipers Could Have Taken Out Suicide Bomber

by Micaela Burrow, Daily Caller, March 26, 2023:

A Marine sniper’s testimony that he had an opportunity to take out the Abbey Gate suicide bomber during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan came as a surprise to family and advocates of one of the service members killed in the attack, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted an investigation into the events leading up to the suicide bombing on August 26, 2021 that killed 13 U.S. military personnel aiding the evacuation of Afghan allies after the Taliban captured Kabul. Family of the deceased received in-person briefings a short while before CENTCOM made public the unclassified version of the final report, but one family member and two advocates said the briefers never provided any indication that the Marine snipers had a missed chance to engage the bomber.

“They said nobody knew where he was at that time or what he looked like at that time,” Shana Chappell, the mother of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, who died in the blast, told the DCNF.

“What [the sniper] had said I had already known about, because other Marines had talked about it before the investigation had even happened,” she added. “There was just a lot of stuff that didn’t add up that I had been told by the Marines that were there, and none of it was mentioned in the report that was given to us.”

The investigation concluded a lone suicide bomber managed to bypass Taliban checkpoints at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, detonating an explosive vest that also contained ball bearings at 5:36 p.m, according to the report. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed up to 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. servicemembers, as well as wounding dozens more.

Briefers, including a Marine Corps colonel, a military justice officer, a major and a non-commissioned officer, presented a slideshow and a spiral-bound booklet to Nikoui’s parents in January 2022 on the events of the attack. Retired Col. Kurt Schlichter, a trial lawyer and media figure representing Chappell, and retired Col. Seth Goldberg, a lawyer, attended the briefing by request to support the family with legal and military expertise, and confirmed the briefing contents to the DCNF.

They told the DCNF that they understood the families of the remaining deceased received similar briefings around the same time.

“There was nothing about knowing who the guy was — who the terrorist was —nothing about having eyes on [him], nothing about the battalion commander being requested permission to fire — nothing about any of that,” Schlichter told the DCNF.

However, at a House hearing on March 8, Marine Corps Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews said he, Sgt. Charles Schilling and an unnamed individual spotted the suicide bomber from their perch in the sniper tower, located near the sewage canal and the gate itself, sometime just before 1 p.m. on the day of the blast, according to a transcript. The unnamed individual had previously provided descriptions of the man who Vargas-Andrews believed to be the suicide bomber.

Vargas-Andrews requested permission to engage with the suspect and presented evidence to the battalion commander, LT. Col. Brad Whited, Vargas-Andrews testified.

“We asked if we could shoot. Our battalion commander said, ‘I don’t know,’” Vargas-Andrews told Congress.

“If it was classified, and they withheld it for that reason, the briefing that the families gave was entirely misleading and you don’t have to mislead to not reveal classified info,” Schlichter said….

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

American stranded in Afghanistan says Taliban is ‘going door-to-door’ hunting for Americans

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Meanwhile, Biden’s handlers won’t call the Taliban the enemy, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claims that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was meticulously planned.

Taliban is ‘hunting Americans,’ says California mom-to-be left behind in Afghanistan

by Brie Stimson, Fox News, September 5, 2021:

House Foreign Affairs Committee member Darrell Issa on the fight to free trapped citizens in Afghanistan and bring them back to America.

A pregnant woman named Nasria, a California native, flew to Afghanistan in June to visit family and get married. As of early September, she remained one of the estimated 100 to 200 Americans left behind in the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to a report.

Now that the U.S. military is gone, the Taliban is “hunting Americans,” she told the Voice of America.

“I think to myself, ‘Am I going to make it home? Am I going to end up living here? Am I going to end up dying here? What’s going to happen?’” Nasria, 25, who asked to be referred to only by her first name for safety reasons, said.

“Apparently they’re [the Taliban] going door-to-door … trying to see if anybody has a blue passport,” she said.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has been working to rescue Americans remaining in Afghanistan, said during an appearance on Fox News that Nasria had been kicked in the stomach by Taliban fighters.

“Anyone who says there aren’t people stranded is wrong,” Issa said during the broadcast.

As the country fell to the Taliban, Nasria and her husband, an Afghan national, hurried to the overcrowded and chaotic Kabul airport in an effort to evacuate.

“It was so hard to get on a flight. There were a couple of days where we had to sleep on streets,” she said. “People were literally stepping over people. That’s how bad it was.”…

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TREASON: U.S. Officials Gave Taliban a List of Names of Americans and Afghan Allies

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Treason is defined as providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Obama committed it when he showered billions upon the Islamic Republic of Iran. And now we have another treasonous administration.

U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate

by Lara Seligman, Alexander Ward and Andrew Desiderio, Politico, August 26, 2021:

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.

The issue came up during a classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week, which turned contentious after top Biden administration officials defended their close coordination with the Taliban. Biden officials contended that it was the best way to keep Americans and Afghans safe and prevent a shooting war between Taliban fighters and the thousands of U.S. troops stationed at the airport.

After the fall of Kabul, in the earliest days of the evacuation, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic coordination team at the airport provided the Taliban with a list of people the U.S. aimed to evacuate. Those names included Afghans who served alongside the U.S. during the 20-year war and sought special immigrant visas to America. U.S. citizens, dual nationals and lawful permanent residents were also listed.

“They had to do that because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one U.S. official said.

But after thousands of visa applicants arrived at the airport, overwhelming the capacity of the U.S. to process them, the State Department changed course — asking the applicants not to come to the airport and instead requesting they wait until they were cleared for entry. From then on, the list fed to the Taliban didn’t include those Afghan names.

As of Aug. 25, only U.S. passport and green card holders were being accepted as eligible for evacuation, the defense official said.

Still, that U.S. officials handed over a list of Afghan allies and American citizens and residents shows the extent to which they outsourced security of the airport’s outer perimeter to the Taliban. The Taliban has gone door-to-door in search of Afghan interpreters and others who helped U.S. and Western forces.

In written and verbal communications, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, head of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, have referred to the Taliban as “our Afghan partners,” according to two defense officials.

The Biden administration has been coordinating the evacuation effort and airport security with the Taliban, which is running the checkpoints outside the airport’s outer perimeter. Officials have been “in daily communication” with Taliban commanders about who to let in, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters this week.

The news comes just hours after two Islamic State terrorist attacks rocked the area just outside the airport, killing at least four U.S. Marines and wounding dozens more. A number of Afghans were also killed in the bombings….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.