Amid a warning Friday to President Biden from his national security team that another terror attack in Kabul is likely, the Pentagon acknowledged that thousands …
Amid a warning Friday to President Biden from his national security team that another terror attack in Kabul is likely, the Pentagon acknowledged that thousands of ISIS prisoners were released after the U.S. withdrawal from Bagram Air Base last month. Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Friday: « How many ISIS-K prisoners were left at Bagram and are believed to have been released from the prison there, and why weren’t they removed before the US pulled out – to some place like Gitmo? » Kirby said he didn’t know « the exact number. » « Clearly, it’s in the thousands, when you consider both prisons, » he said. Kirby noted that both prisons near Bagram, which is about a one-hour drive north of Kabul, « were taken over by the Taliban and emptied. » On July 2, U.S. troops abandoned Bagram in the middle of the night without warning their Afghan allies. On Aug.15, the Taliban seized the base from the Afghan army and set free 5,000 prisoners, which included by Taliban and ISIS fighters. ISIS-K, the regional spinoff of the Islamic supremacist movement, claimed responsibility on Thursday for the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and seriously wounded another 14. Ninety-five Afghans also were killed in the attack at the Abbey Gate at the Kabul international airport where thousands of Americans and Afghan allies are gathered seeking to be evacuated. At the Pentagon news conference Friday, Kirby addressed Griffin’s use of the term « emptied » regarding the prisoners. « And as for emptying out, remember we were turning things over to Afghan national security forces, that was part of the retrograde process, was to turn over these responsibilities, » he said. « And so they did have responsibility for those prisons and the bases at which those prisons were located. » Kirby said further that « as the Taliban advanced, we didn’t see the level of resistance by the Afghans to hold some territory, some bases, and unfortunately those were the bases the Afghans didn’t hold.
