No single nation has been quite as furious with Biden over the Afghanistan defeat as India. Not only did India invest resources into Afghanistan, but the Taliban takeover means the triumph of the Pakistan-China coalition that threatens India’s survival.
So the Indians have been some of the vigorous critics of Biden’s actions.
One of the big variables in the Taliban triumph and the shameful rout has been the abandonment of Bagram Air Base. Biden and his people made the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base and focus on securing the Kabul embassy. The abandonment of Bagram not only cut off our only reliable exit strategy, but also led to the Taliban liberating thousands from a nearby prison that included their own fighters, Al Qaeda, and ISIS-K.
Now there appears to be a direct link between the abandonment of Bagram and the suicide bombing at Kabul airport.
The Islamic State suicide bomber who killed at least 169 Afghan civilians and 13 United States soldiers outside Kabul airport last month was incarcerated in Afghanistan’s notorious Bagram prison for the past four years, thanks to Indian efforts, Firstpost has learnt through credible 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. However, the jihadist walked free on 15 August along with thousands of other dangerous terrorists held in the high-security prison, taking advantage of the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of the United State’s hurried exit and the Taliban’s swift takeover of the entire country.
Identified as Abdul Rehman, the jihadist was a former student of an engineering college in India and hailed from Afghanistan’s Logar province. He was the son of an Afghan merchant who frequently visited India for business.
His 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).
“America’s disorganised retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly-competent and highly-committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” one officer who worked on the Abdul Rehman case said.
“Literally a decade’s work on counter-terrorism has been undone by the US’ failure to secure key prisoners in Bagram,” he said adding that the consequences of this failure will be “very far-reaching.”
The Islamic State’s South Asia magazine, Sawt al-Hind (or Voice of the Indian Subcontinent) also confirmed in this weekend’s edition that the suicide bomber had earlier been arrested in New Delhi, in the course of a failed suicide-bombing plot.
You can see why India is mad.
If true, Biden, Austin, and Milley’s actions led to the murder of 13 Americans and undermined the counterterrorism relationship with India.
This is something that Congress needs to be looking at because there is a direct line here between Bagram and the suicide bombing. And that means the decisions by Biden, Austin, and Milley have left the blood of American military personnel on their hands.
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