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23 June 2024

‘I warned the CIA about Afghanistan’s collapse — and was ignored’ Biden only enflamed the situation

Tam Hussein

On 26 August 2021, shortly after the Taliban conquered Kabul, Abdur Rahman Logari detonated his suicide vest near the Abbey Gate in the city’s airport, killing 170 men, women and children who were trying to flee the country. Two days later, a US drone strike killed an entire Afghan family in the mistaken belief that the target was Logari. Joe Biden would later describe the Abbey Gate attack — Isis’s most successful operation in Afghanistan - as "the hardest of the hard days" of his presidency. Harder days, however, were soon to come.

While a recent US military review concluded that Logari's plot was not preventable, the findings were less a vindication of America's chaotic withdrawal than a reminder of how the US- Afghan relationship had broken down. As US forces withdrew, many afghan government officials told me that they had warned their US counterparts about the threat of Islamic State.

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