Kabul bomber walked out of air base prison Biden abandoned

FPI / September 21, 2021

One of the terrorists who killed 13 U.S. military personnel and 169 Afghans in the bombings at Kabul airport walked away from the prison at Bagram Air Base after Joe Biden abandoned the base which held high strategic value, a report said.

Abdul Rehman and hundreds of other terrorists walked out of the high-security prison on Aug. 15 after the Taliban easily took advantage of the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of the United State’s hurried exit to take over the base, India's Firstpost reported on Sept. 19.

Rehman was one of the IS-K terrorists who carried out the bombings at the Kabul airport on Aug. 26.

"America’s disorganized retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly-competent and highly-committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, Al Qaida and other terrorist groups," the report cited one officer who worked on the Abdul Rehman case as saying.

"Literally a decade’s work on counter-terrorism has been undone by the U.S.'s failure to secure key prisoners in Bagram," the officer said, adding that the consequences of this failure will be "very far-reaching."

Thanks to Indian efforts, Rehman had been incarcerated at the Bagram prison for four years, the report noted, citing intelligence sources.

"Senior Indian intelligence sources familiar with the case have told Firstpost that he was handed over to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency by the Research and Analysis Wing in September 2017," the report said.

Rehman's arrest "had led to the termination of a plot by the Islamic State of Khurasan Province (IS-K) — the Islamic State’s regional wing in Afghanistan — to stage suicide bombings in New Delhi and other cities across the region, probably on the behest of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI)," the report said.

Related: Who is Kash Patel? Key Trump intel advisor slams ‘unconditional surrender’ of Bagram Air Base, August 26, 2021

President Donald Trump's plan for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan included retaining control of Bagram Air Base until all Americans were out of the country.

“No one in their right mind would have closed Bagram Air Base while leaving behind thousands of civilians,” Arkansas GOP senator and Afghanistan war veteran Tom Cotton tweeted.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going,” that would require “a significant number of military forces,” so “you had to collapse one or the other.”

Afghan military officials said the U.S. left Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left.

The American and Afghan forces who vacated the base left the Taliban military equipment, uniforms, rations and even sports drinks, reports say.

Free Press International