US to conduct new interviews on deadly 2021 Kabul bombing

The United States has said it will interview more witnesses of a suicide bombing that killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US troops during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The interviews, ordered on Friday by General Erik Kurilla, head of US Central Command, were triggered in part by assertions by at least one service member wounded in the blast who said he was never interviewed about it and that he might have been able to stop the attackers.

The interviews are meant to see if service members who were not included in the original investigation have new or different information.

A US investigation concluded that the August 26, 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul could not have been prevented, but Republican lawmakers have piled pressure on President Joe Biden's administration over both the attack and the chaotic nature of the end of the US' longest military intervention.

The bombing targeted crowds of people on the perimetre of Kabul airport who were desperate to get on a flight out of the country as the Taliban took power.

"Right now, the team is planning on conducting 19 interviews and additional interviews if necessary," Central Command [CENTCOM] spokesperson Michael Lawhorn told the AFP news agency.

Officials also did not rule out that the number of interviews could grow as a result of those initial conversations.

The aim of conducting additional interviews is to "ensure we do our due diligence with the new information that has come to light, that the relevant voices are fully heard and that we take those accounts and examine them seriously and thoroughly so the facts are clear," Lawhorn added.

Mishandling?

In emotional testimony during a congressional hearing in March, former Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews told lawmakers that he was thwarted in an attempt to stop the suicide bombing.

He said Marines and others aiding in the evacuation operation were given descriptions of men believed to be plotting an attack before it occurred.

Daesh claimed the Abbey Gate bombing, and the White House said earlier this year that the Taliban killed the mastermind of the attack.

The March hearing was set up to examine the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.

Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, far more rapidly than US intelligence had foreseen as American forces pulled out.

Kabul’s fall turned the West’s withdrawal into a frenzy, putting the airport at the centre of a desperate air evacuation by US troops.

In April, Biden's administration laid blame on his predecessor, Donald Trump, for the deadly withdrawal.

A 12-page summary of the results of the "hotwash" of US policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war asserts that Biden was "severely constrained" by Trump's decisions.