The withdrawal from Afghanistan cast one of the biggest shadows on Joe Biden’s administration, which also caused a significant loss of popularity for the Democratic president. The reason for this is not the fact of the withdrawal itself, but the seemingly hasty and thoughtless way in which it took place, parallel to which the Taliban marched triumphantly into Kabul, the Afghan capital. During the evacuation of American troops on August 26, 2021, a massive explosion occurred at the Kabul airport, killing 170 Afghans and 13 Americans.
CNN has obtained new evidence that casts a shadow on the results of the American investigations so far, especially on whether there was a firefight that afternoon.
CNN obtained footage from a Marine’s GoPro camera and then spoke to dozens of other soldiers about what happened. Based on this, it can be concluded that there was no sporadic shooting, but that they opened fire very seriously on the Americans who responded. An Afghan doctor also confirmed that he himself removed bullets from several wounded, and hospital staff counted dozens of people who died from gunshot wounds.
All of this, according to CNN, calls into question the credibility of the investigations by the Ministry of Defense, i.e. the Pentagon, in which they believe that they covered up the fact that someone shot civilians to death on that August day.
What exactly happened?
On August 26, 2021, a huge explosion occurred in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, which became the deadliest attack in Afghanistan in a decade. Before that, thousands of Afghans, desperate because of the Taliban advance, tried to enter the airport in order to leave the country on some of the American cargo planes. In the end, the Americans got about a hundred thousand people out of the country (together with the allied countries, more than 120 thousand people).
The scramble was worst around the airport’s south-east Abbey gate, with many people standing knee-deep in filth in a drain filled with sewage and garbage, waiting to enter the airport grounds. This is where the ISIS-K assassin detonated an inferno machine placed in a backpack. According to the Pentagon, there was no major shooting after that, the American and British troops who were also on the scene fired a lot of warning shots and did not hit anyone.
The American Central Command ordered an additional review in 2023 after eyewitness accounts and congressional hearings in the case, also examining whether the bombing could have been prevented. The supplementary report was made public on April 15 this year (read here), the main finding of which was that, even with the new information, there is no reason to doubt the content of the first report in November 2021.
They wrote this despite the fact that many Afghan survivors also reported a fierce firefight.
On the said marine’s GoPro footage (which recorded what happened for minutes before and after the explosion), they are shot at least eleven times, for a total of four minutes. This is much more than the three simultaneous series of shots written by the Pentagon in the report. It is important to note that on the recordings you can hear the bursts, but not see them (as well as the wounds), so you don’t know who is shooting whom. Marines can be seen running for cover while suffocating from tear gas, as the blast also set off a grenade.
It’s probably the soldier recording the events, recording what happened, and a voice saying, “They’re breaking through.” In the remaining parts of the recording, the soldiers take stock of their units, their wounded, and try to recover, while occasionally the crack of weapons is heard.
CNN watched the footage with several experts. One of them counted 43 shots, and the other indicated that there was no sign of manipulation in the recording.
The Pentagon is fighting back
According to the portal, the Pentagon report does not mention the video, so it is not clear how much of it defense officials may have seen. Back in February 2022, probably from this recording, a few seconds of the explosion were made public. The Pentagon said that before they say anything, they need to see the recording, but they also added that it does not necessarily change the fact of the investigations that the ISIS-K attack was not a complex attack and that there was no fierce firefight. The British Ministry of Defense also admitted that its soldiers did not shoot at civilians, they only fired warning shots.
However, two years earlier, CNN was able to speak with 19 Afghan survivors, who said that after the bombing, someone shot at the wounded. “They targeted people. People were shot and collapsed in front of me,” said 16-year-old Nazir. According to Núrullah Zahel, the refugees were shot at, and medical reports also show that many of them were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Dr. Said Ahmadi, a doctor from Kabul who has since lived in Finland, treated several gunshot victims at that time. He told CNN that a blast victim had multiple wounds on his body, but several were admitted to the hospital with one or two apparent gunshot wounds.
According to Ahmadi, he also received a threatening phone call that day, in which he was told to stop recording the bullet that caused the condition of the wounded.
A voice on the phone, fluent in Dari, warned her that if she loves her family and her life, stop the data collection. They stopped, and Ahmadi ordered his team to destroy the evidence. Later, he spoke anonymously about his experience, which the Pentagon brushed off by saying that the injuries caused by the bearing balls used to increase the destruction of the explosions and the projectiles of firearms are very similar. By the way, Ahmadi has not been contacted by the investigators to date.
A Pentagon spokesperson told CNN that they did not contact Afghans when preparing the report, but they did not feel it was necessary, as it was focused on American operations.
Who shot whom?
Incidentally, the US Marines’ claims about the shooting were often dismissed as the result of concussions caused by the explosion. However, the military eyewitnesses interviewed by CNN unanimously reported a firefight. It is not clear from the report whether a terrorist also shot at them. By the way, one of the soldiers claimed that they were directly forbidden from firing warning shots, because the projectiles can also land in areas inhabited by civilians. Thus, the shots were sharp and aimed, based on the reports, they could have come from the tower reserved for snipers, along the airport fence.
The soldier interviewed said he was not sure that the Marines had not opened fire on anyone on the ground. He also added that the Marines assigned to the Abbey Gate were mostly young, very recently trained. According to him, everyone would have reacted similarly, especially since part of the training is to teach that in such a case you must immediately return fire, look for cover, and then return fire with precise aim in the third phase.
The unnamed soldier also called the Pentagon’s explanation pathetic: “To say that every marine, every soldier, every sailor on the scene suffered a traumatic brain injury and doesn’t remember the shooting is crazy.” He also emotionally apologized to the Afghan families for not being able to keep their promises and deal with the Taliban movement in twenty years, and thus they had to leave.
Another Marine talked about seeing some of his comrades shoot back at someone, and then no more shots came from them. Another added that it was not the Taliban who shot, they (preparing to take over the airport) were standing on top of a few containers in the area, also shocked and watching what happened, not even holding their weapons. Some remembered a sergeant instructing the Marines after the explosion to “get back on that wall and shoot those bastards back.” However, the Marine in question, who suffered a leg injury, did not see that his comrades were actually firing back.
Christian Sanchez, a survivor who spoke to a YouTube channel collecting accounts of Marines earlier, said his ears were ringing and he saw flashes after the explosion. Then he started hearing thuds, realized someone was shooting at him, so he started firing back.
For sure, according to CNN, there are gaps in the information made public by the Pentagon, and that military leaders in 2021 admitted at a congressional hearing that there are recordings in the ministry’s possession that have not been published. Finally, the article quotes an American military survivor who says that the military leadership claims that “what you saw is practically not the truth. Shut up and we’ll talk for you.”
Tags: Headcam footage casts doubt investigations bloodiest moment Afghan withdrawal
-
