‘We Were Ignored’: Marine Corps Sniper Testifies Kabul Suicide Bombing Could Have Been Stopped
The culminating event of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021 was the horrific attack on Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate. The explosion killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans. It also maimed countless more, including 45 service members like Tyler Vargas-Andrews.
The U.S. Marine Corps sergeant was one of six witnesses to testify Wednesday in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The witnesses described widespread government failure and carnage which saw American soldiers and Afghans butchered as the military tried desperately to evacuate U.S. personnel and allies from Taliban-controlled Kabul.
In emotional testimony Wednesday, Vargas-Andrews described harrowing scenes he witnessed during those final days.
A sniper living out of an airport tower, Vargas-Andrews saw thousands of people approach the airport attempting to leave Afghanistan — mothers carrying dying infants, others suffering from heat exhaustion.
“Countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position…We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and intel assets but nothing came of it,” Vargas-Andrews said, adding that some who were turned away tried to kill themselves on the protective razor wire, thinking it “merciful compared to the Taliban torture that they faced.”
On August 22, the sergeant and his fellow service members reported to the chain of command that the enemy performed an IED test run. Days later, they received intelligence of IED threats and a detailed description of a suspected suicide bomber and his companion. On August 26, Vargas-Andrews and others spotted a pair at Abbey Gate matching the description exactly and they requested permission to engage.
“The response: ‘Leadership did not have the engagement authority for us. Do not engage,’” he explained, adding that they waited and waited for a response that never came.
“Eventually the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was the suicide bomber,” he said.
“Plain and simple, we were ignored,” explained Vargas-Andrews. “Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety.”
Later that day, the explosion came. Vargas-Andrews lost an arm and a leg as well as internal organs. He has had 44 surgeries to date.
No one wanted to hear his post-blast report, Vargas-Andrews said. For him, the withdrawal “was a catastrophe and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.”
The Trump administration had previously negotiated a deal with the Taliban directly, excluding the Afghan government in a controversial move. The deal set in place fighting restrictions between the two sides, provided for the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners, and promised a full withdrawal of NATO and U.S. troops in exchange for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban.
Biden decided to follow through on his predecessor’s commitments. U.S. withdrawal saw a quick collapse of the Afghan government and bloodshed as the Taliban advanced.
U.S. Army specialist Aidan Gunderson was another service member affected by the explosion.
“I was born one year before 9/11. For 20 years of my life we were at war, and there I was watching the enemy take over the country’s capital,” Gunderson explained.
To him, other service members, and Afghan war allies, the war is far from over. Gunderson said he will relive those final days — and the stench of iron and death in the air — for the rest of his life.
“America is building a nasty reputation for a multigenerational systemic abandonment of our allies that we leave a smoldering human wreckage from the Montagnards of Vietnam to the Kurds of Syria,” explained retired lieutenant colonel David Scott Mann.
The prevailing image of that month remains the shocking footage of a man clinging to the outside of a U.S. military jet as it departed, plunging to his death.
“We might be done with Afghanistan, but it’s not done with us,” Mann added.
According to Francis Hoang, executive chairman of Allied Airlift 21, private charter companies had to step in to evacuate Afghan allies and their families when the U.S. military failed to do so.
Hoang, who was himself evacuated from Saigon, Vietnam when the U.S. withdrew from that war, explained that over 80 percent of the Afghans who stood by the U.S. military, at great risk to themselves, have been left behind.
On August 27, several private companies including Allied Airlift organized a desperate journey through Taliban-controlled territory for hundreds of Afghan allies and Americans on six buses. When the buses reached Mazar-i-Sharif, the private companies spent 3 weeks hiding the allies and Americans through the generosity of American donors until a privately-chartered flight could be organized. More than 350 people were on that September flight, including 128 Americans and 152 children. All are presently safe and free in America.
“This whole thing has been a gutting experience. I never imagined I would witness the kind of gross abandonment followed by career-preserving silence of leaders, military and civilian,” explained Mann.
He said 73 percent of Afghan war veterans say they feel betrayed by how this war has ended, adding that he thinks we’re on the front end of a mental-health tsunami.
“We fought and we bled to build for 20 years an Afghan special operations forces capacity and while I know the meta-narrative is that the security forces withdrew, didn’t fight, the reality is that the Afghan Special Ops did 95 percent of fighting and fought to very end. Most of them ran out of bullets. Many of them were overrun,” Mann explained.
“I believe that could have been a responsible antibody to violent extremist groups with a small footprint that advise and assist and I believe we could have maintained that,” he said, explaining that pulling support and maintenance hamstrung the special operations forces from doing what they do best.
Mann added that what the U.S. is now left with is “27 violent extremist groups…now operating on former NATO security bases with Taliban top cover.”
When one considers the Pentagon leadership, at the time of these events, none of this is a surprise. Their priorities have nothing to do with military readiness.