US rejects report questioning Kabul attack probe, says 'no proof anyone hit by gunfire'

The US Defence Department on Wednesday rejected the report by CNN, stating that its investigation has found no definitive evidence that anyone was killed by gunfire in the Kabul airport attack. It is to mention that a CNN probe had questioned the results of an official report claiming that no people were killed by gunfire during the suicide bombing at Kabul Airport in August 2021. 

In response to CNN’s probe, John Kirby, speaking at a news breifing, said, “The investigation we believe was comprehensive. It was credible and it was quite definitive.”

“The investigation found no definitive proof that anyone was ever hit or killed by gunfire, either US or Afghan, and I think I'd leave it at that," he added. 

An army investigation into the Biden administration’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year revealed that the blast from the Kabul suicide bombing caused injuries that looked like gunshot. The report was written as a result of a probe of the deadly suicide bombing at Kabul airport on 26 August, which claimed the lives of 13 US servicemen and 170 Afghan civilians. 

Following the release of the Pentagon report, CNN stated that it interviewed 70 witnesses and families of the deal and reviewed medical records, videos and photos. It said that around 19 people told the media outlet that they saw others being hit by gunfire or were hit in crossfire themselves. CNN also cited forensic blast analysts and said that a single human-borne explosive could not have led to the injuries and deaths of so many people, while others maintained it was possible.

Pentagon report on US Afghanistan withdrawal 

Meanwhile, citing the 2,000-page investigative report, Washington Post revealed that senior US officials failed to understand the significance of the Taliban’s push toward Kabul and resisted efforts by military commanders to prepare an evacuation of embassy staffers and Afghan allies in the weeks before Kabul fell, putting American troops involved in the withdrawal in greater danger. The report suggested that the chaos and the much-criticised decision to leave behind those who failed to make it to the airport within two weeks since the start of the troop pullout might have been avoided. 

Further, the investigative report revealed previously unreported instances of violence directed at US forces, including a gun battle between Marines and the Taliban fighters that killed two of the militants and another in which American troops killed a member of an elite Afghan unit and wounded six others after they fired on Americans. It detailed the immense pressure US troops were under as thousands of Afghans streamed to the airport in a desperate attempt to flee the return of militant rule. 

(Image: AP)