Taliban kill ISIS leader behind deadly Kabul airport attack of August 2021

The Islamic State cell leader, who reportedly planned the deadly August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul international airport that left 183 people dead, was killed by the Taliban, the US National Security Council said on Tuesday, April 25.

The suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which also left 13 US service members dead in August 2021, coincided with the tumultuous American exit from Afghanistan 20 years after it invaded the South Asian nation following the 9/11 attacks.

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The Biden administration did not name the ISIS-Khorasan leader killed. But reports have claimed that it wasAbdul Rehman Al-Loghri, the top ISIS-K figurehead who was released from a prison at Bagram airbase, only days before the Taliban replaced democratically-elected Ashraf Ghani government from Kabul's corridors of power.

"He was a key ISIS-K official directly involved in plotting operations like Abbey Gate, and now is no longer able to plot or conduct attacks," White House spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement, referring to the Abbey Gate entrance to the Kabul airport where the blast occurred. He did not name the official.

The Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K, after an old name of the region, is an enemy of the Taliban. Fighters loyal to Islamic State first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later made inroads in other areas.

The August 2021attack raised ISIS-K’s international profile, immediatelypositioning it as a major threat to Taliban's newly gunned out rule in Kabul.

Since taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have waged a heavy armed campaign against ISIS-K. The Taliban, so far, have managed to prevent the group from seizing Afghanistan's territory. Reports suggest that the hardliners have even limited the recruitment to ISIS-K of the former Taliban fighters.

But despite that, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the ISIS-K has spread out from eastern Afghanistan to all of the country's 34 provinces.

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