“It’s hard to explain what the thinking was in letting out people who were a threat to the Taliban.”
No, it isn’t, but it’s not surprising that a senior UN counterterrorism official would be clueless and ignorant. Either al-Logari was not actually a threat to the Taliban, or the Taliban knew (or were hoping) he would target the Americans.
“U.S. Military Focusing on ISIS Cell Behind Attack at Kabul Airport,” by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, January 1, 2022:
…The United States has not carried out any airstrikes in the country since the last American troops left on Aug. 30.
The attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate unfolded four days earlier, during the frenzied final days of the largest noncombatant evacuation ever conducted by the U.S. military. It was one of the deadliest attacks of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State identified the suicide bomber as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari. American officials say he was a former engineering student who was one of several thousand militants freed from at least two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on Aug. 15. The Taliban emptied the facilities indiscriminately, releasing not only their own imprisoned members but also fighters from Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, the group’s branch in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nemesis.
“It’s hard to explain what the thinking was in letting out people who were a threat to the Taliban,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior U.N. counterterrorism official, said at a recent security conference in Doha, Qatar….
