New Footage and CNN Sources Challenge Pentagon Claims About Gunfire After 2021 Afghan Airport Bombing

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:29 pm

The volume of gunfire that occurred during the 2021 Kabul airport bombing attack may have been higher and more consequential than U.S. military investigators have let on, according to new footage and interviews shared by CNN.

In total, 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members were killed and dozens more were injured on Aug. 26, 2021, after a bomb blast went off at the Abbey Gate checkpoint to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul Afghanistan. The blast, attributed to an ISIS member identified as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, took place as U.S. forces were overseeing civilian evacuations before their final force withdrawal from the country.

To date, the U.S. military has concluded that all casualties from the bombing attack were the result of the explosive blast and wounds inflicted by ball bearings contained in the bomb that was detonated. Gunfire rang out after the blast but the U.S. military has thus far concluded these were warning shots, confined to three bursts, that did not inflict in any additional casualties from those caused by the blast. But CNN has conducted a new analysis of previously unseen footage, suggesting more gunshots were fired than the U.S. military has acknowledged in the course of two separate official reviews.

While the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) officially concludes there were three bursts of gunfire in the moments after the blast, CNN concluded, based on a forensic review of the footage, that there were 11 bursts of gunfire over a four-minute window, containing at least 43 shots.

Robert Maher, an audio forensic expert at Montana State University in Bozeman, provided audio analysis for the CNN report. Sarah Morris, a digital forensics expert from the University of Southampton in England also reviewed the footage as part of CNN’s forensic analysis.

The actual source of the apparent gunfire is not clear in the newly released footage and none of the U.S. Marines in the footage are seen firing their weapons, but what sounds like dozens of distant gunshots can be heard throughout the footage.

It’s unclear if the U.S. military reviewers have been aware of the footage CNN obtained, but portions of this new footage match up to a short video the U.S. military officially released in February 2022 upon concluding its first review of the attack.

In addition to the footage, CNN detailed a new interview with Dr. Sayeed Ahmadi, director of the Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul.

Ahmadi originally spoke to CNN anonymously in 2022. At that point he had described wounds he examined and treated following the Kabul airport bombing. He alleged finding multiple instances of gunshot wounds among the casualties in the attack.

The DOD has disputed the claims Ahmadi initially made anonymously about gunshot wounds among those injured and killed in the Abbey Gate attack. The DOD insisted wounds inflicted by bullet and ball-bearing would be hard to distinguish, but Ahmadi has now come forward, with his identity revealed, to contest that DOD conclusion.

“Explosion injuries come with severe injuries and lots of holes in the bodies,” he said. “But people who were shot had just one or two holes in the chest or head.”

The Afghan doctor said he was never approached by military investigators about his claims.

Other anonymous sources provided additional comments to CNN. One source, whom CNN identified as a Marine, challenged the idea that his fellow Marines would have fired warning shots. This Marine allegedly said there was never a direct order not to fire warning shots, but it that there “was a common understanding” not to do so.

That same Marine also said he didn’t believe the shots that could be heard in the new footage were consistent with warning fire. The CNN footage appears to include an initial burst of around three rounds, followed by a sustained burst of perhaps 20 gunshots, and then what sound like nine more sporadically-placed bursts of two to three shots, spaced out over several minutes after the initial bomb blast.

Of note, the Department of the Navy—which oversees the U.S. Marine Corps—published a policy order in December of 2020, which states, “Warning shots are prohibited in the U.S. Warning shots are also prohibited outside the U.S. unless otherwise authorized by applicable host-nation law and status of forces agreements and” standing rules regarding the use of force.

An initial review of the attack, detailed in a September 2021 U.S. Army AR 15-6 report, concluded the warning shots had been fired by British troops also assisting the evacuation through the Kabul airport.

The publicly-available version of this AR 15-6 report also includes the account of a U.S. Marine who described witnessing warning shots fired by an individual whose name is redacted, at someone “who positioned himself to observe the Marines’ reaction to the blast and who had been in the crowd acting suspiciously before the blast.”

FreeBase News contacted the DOD about these new allegations raised by CNN but has not received a response.

CNN reported it had shared the details of its new footage and allegations with the DOD prior to publication.

Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, a spokesman for the military review team, told Military Times that reviewers were not permitted to see the new CNN footage before it was published.

“The Abbey Gate investigation thoroughly investigated the allegations of a complex attack, as well as allegations of outgoing fire from U.S. and coalition forces following the blast,” Lodewick said. “The supplemental review found no new evidence of a complex attack, and uncovered no new assertions of outgoing fire post-blast.”

This footage comes out just days after the DOD announced the conclusions of its second review of the Abbey Gate bombing attack. The final report for the attack has not been made public, but the review team largely reiterated the findings in their first report and disputed claims by a U.S. Marine Sniper, that there had been an opportunity to stop the attack before it had occurred.