ISIS-K bomber who executed Kabul airport blast freed from jail days before attack: Reports

The ISIS-K suicide bomber who killed 13 US service members and hundreds of Afghans in a terrorist strike at Kabul Airport in late August had been released from a prison near Kabul just days before the Taliban assumed control of the area, according to three US sources, CNN reported.

The suicide bomber was released from the Parwan prison at Bagram airbase, according to two US officials and Rep. Ken Calvert, a California Republican who said he had been briefed by national security officials. The base was in US control until early July when it was abandoned. In 2013, it handed up the facility to Afghan authorities.

The breakthrough highlights the confusion surrounding the final days of the US pullout from Afghanistan, as well as the US battle to maintain control of a rapidly deteriorating situation near the airport, which is entrusted to the Taliban to secure.

When the Taliban took control of the Parwan prison in Bagram and the Pul-e-Charkhi prison near Kabul hours before taking over the capital with barely a shot fired in mid-August, both facilities housed several hundred members of ISIS-K, as well as thousands of other prisoners, a regional counter-terrorism source told CNN at the time. Both prisons were emptied by the Taliban, who released not only their own detainees but also members of ISIS-K, the terror group's Afghan wing.

ISIS-K claims responsibility for Kabul airport blast

One of the detainees was the one who carried out the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate on August 26, killing 13 US service members, including 11 Marines, one soldier, and one sailor. They would be the last US troops slain in America's longest conflict in Afghanistan. According to the Marine Corps, one Marine injured in the incident is still in serious but stable condition at Walter Reed Military Medical Center outside Washington as of October 5. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack, naming Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri as the suicide bomber. The attacker's identity was confirmed by two US officials.

Most detainees at Parwan prison were terrorists

Without a US military presence on the ground to monitor the newest events in Afghanistan, the fast shift from released prisoner to suicide bomber illustrates the threats that the country could represent. The threat from Afghanistan, according to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, is currently lower than it was after the 9/11 attacks, but he warned that conditions 'must be prepared' for the re-emergence of al Qaeda or ISIS-K.

On July 1, the US handed over Bagram Air Base to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), bringing the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan to 90 percent completion.

According to a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, there were about 5,000 inmates at Bagram at the time. A few hundred were criminals, but the vast majority were terrorists, including members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS, according to the spokesman. Foreign detainees from Pakistan, Chechnya, and the Middle East were also held there. The Afghans were in charge of securing the complex, CNN reported.

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