Pentagon to Interview Kabul Airport Attack Witnesses Amid Calls for Transparency

The United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001, spending nearly 20 years and more than $2.3 trillion removing the Taliban* from power and occupying Afghanistan. On August 15, 2021, two weeks before the total US withdrawal from the country, the Taliban returned to power, and sacked the capital city of Kabul.

Nearly 20 US military personnel who were injured in a suicide bombing during the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan will be interviewed about the incident after their public comments about the attack increased public and congressional scrutiny.

The firsthand witnesses were not among the more than 130 people who were interviewed during the military’s investigation of the attack. The interviews were ordered by General Michael E. Kurilla, who oversees US Central Command “to ensure we do our due diligence,” a spokesperson for the Army said in a statement.

The soldiers were not interviewed previously because they were being medically evacuated after the attack, US Army Central said last month.

The order to conduct the interviews does not reopen the investigation, but Kurilla could decide to do so if new information warrants it. One of the soldiers set to be interviewed is Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost multiple organs and two limbs in the attack. Vargas-Andrews testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March that the “withdrawal was a catastrophe,” and that there has been “an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence,” in the follow-up to the attack.

Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, becomes emotional as he recounts his story during a House Committee hearing on the US evacuation from Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 8, 2023.

© AP Photo / Andrew Harnik

In an interview with US media, Vargas-Andrews, a sniper, said he believes he had the suicide bomber in his sights before the attack, but was told to stand down by his superiors.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people died,” because of the decision to stand down, he told US media. “That’s a hard thing to deal with. You know, that’s something that, honestly, eats at me every single day.”

A 2022 CENTCOM investigation determined the attack “was not preventable at the tactical level without degrading the mission to maximize the number of evacuees" and "was not the result of any act of omission or commission by forces on the ground.”

The attack occurred on August 26, 2021, as US allies and Afghan refugees desperately tried to reach the Kabul airport for evacuation. Some 170 Afghan civilians died in the attack, along with 13 US military personnel. Three days later, the US conducted a drone strike that killed seven Afghan children and three adults. The Pentagon originally called the bombing a “righteous” attack on another suicide bomber, but later admitted it was a “tragic mistake.”

As many as 78,000 Afghans who worked for the US government and, depending on the estimate, between several hundred and several thousand US citizens were left behind during the withdrawal.

In April, US officials announced the Taliban executed the man behind the suicide bombing, who was reportedly a member of Daesh**.

Last month, families of 11 of the 13 soldiers who died in the attack called for more transparency.

Kurilla ordered Lt. General Patrick D. Frank to review public testimony about the attack in June. The interviews will start in the coming days and Frank has been asked to provide an update to Kurilla within 90 days. Kurilla also told Frank to take “whatever time is necessary” to make sure the witnesses have had a chance to speak and “share their experience and perspective.”

** Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities

**Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS/IS-K) is a terrorist group banned in Russia