Militants who left fingerprints on IEDs intended to kill Americans in Afghanistan and a prisoner released by the Taliban were among more than 65 terrorists who entered the United States after the catastrophic withdrawal.
Most of them could still be roaming the country and the government has no way of tracking them down.
The damning revelations in a new book add to the Biden administration’s laundry list of blunders during and after the catastrophic evacuation of Kabul in August 2021.
It has been two years since the two-week massacre at Hamid Karzai International Airport that led to the deaths of 13 US servicemen, hundreds of Afghans and thousands of stragglers.
Yet evidence of the disastrous handling of troop departures after 20 years and the evacuation of allies by the US government continues to emerge.
Sixty-five individuals identified as “national security risks” were allowed entry into the US in the 12 months following the withdrawal, Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson Write in Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End.
Militants who left fingerprints on IEDs intended to kill Americans in Afghanistan and a prisoner released by the Taliban were among more than 65 terrorists allowed into the United States after the catastrophic withdrawal, a new book has found.
The book also reveals how the Biden administration missed two opportunities to prevent the suicide bombing in Kabul and the dire impact of appointing the Taliban in charge of security.
Among the dangerous individuals allowed into the US were several men whose DNA was found on explosives defused by US forces.
Another was a prisoner “freed” by the Taliban as they rioted in the war-torn country on their way to Kabul.
Despite assurances that the Taliban would not come to power and the US-backed Afghan government would hold out, the capital collapsed as the Western army left.
An Afghan-American interpreter even recognized many Taliban fighters on the tarmac, ready to board flights to the US.
Many were allowed to travel unchecked due to alarming flaws in the vetting process and severe staff shortages that brought the approximately 82,000 evacuees to the US.
About 70 percent of those who came from Afghanistan were not U.S. citizens, green card holders or under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, according to a congressional memo released in the aftermath.
The dangerous suspects took their seats on flights intended for US citizens and allies.
Thousands were left behind when the last US soldier left Kabul after 20 years – and many are still trying to escape if they have managed to evade capture by the Taliban.
Many were allowed to travel unchecked due to alarming flaws in the vetting process and severe shortages of personnel dealing with the approximately 82,000 evacuees being brought to the U.S.A photo inside a U.S. military evacuation plane in August 2021
For their book, Dunleavy and Hasson interviewed several military personnel, senior intelligence officials and senior members of Allied governments.
The harrowing accounts of Americans and Afghans abandoned by the government paint another damning picture of the failure of the Biden administration.
Sixty-five individuals identified as “national security risks” were allowed entry into the US in the 12 months following the withdrawal, write Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson in Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End
They also reveal the bold stories of veterans who launched operations in Afghanistan to aid allies and interpreters who fought alongside the US military.
One of them was Gulum, an American interpreter of Tajik descent, who was on the front line at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
He served commanding generals and stayed until the last evacuation flight left.
During the chaos, he intercepted two men with distinctively long hair and trimmed beards whom he knew were Taliban fighters on the American side of the airport.
Another telling sign was that they had no women or children with them, in stark contrast to the desperate families trying to get to safety.
Gulum warned commanders and told them to be interviewed before boarding a plane.
The couple could not provide the correct papers and visas and were expelled from the airport.
As they walked away, they met a Taliban commander who greeted them by name and got into a truck.
Although they were intercepted before they could board a western evacuation flight, several more escaped unnoticed.
One prisoner managed to make it to the US, although his criminal record was expunged when he was landed and vetted in a third country ‘safe haven’.
‘Different’ information about his background was shared with Customs and Border Protection, but a supervisor allowed him to continue his journey.
He was in the US for three weeks before Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tracked him down and kicked him out of the country.
The devastating revelations in a new book add to the Biden administration’s laundry list of blunders during and after the catastrophic evacuation of Kabul in August 2021
It has been two years since the two-week massacre at Hamid Karzai International Airport that led to the deaths of 13 US servicemen, hundreds of Afghans and thousands left behind
Many have completed the journey, reached the US and may still be here.
“As of February 2022, the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) had identified at least fifty military-aged Afghan male evacuees — none of whom were SIV applicants — who had been flagged by the Defense Department as significant security risks,” a scathing passage reads. .
By August 2022, that number had risen to sixty-five.
The NGIC identified them by matching their recording files with biometrics stored on Defense Department servers.
Those identified by NGIC included men whose fingerprints were found on IEDs defused by US forces.
None had been flagged during the initial screening process because the administration had only compared the profiles of the evacuees against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) databases.
One of the suspected terrorists released was a prisoner “freed” by the Taliban as they rioted in the war-torn country on their way to Kabul. Pictured is Bagram Airfield in the summer before the withdrawal
CBP’s databases contain only data on persons apprehended at the US border.
Men who had lived in Afghanistan all their lives were not included.
And while these individuals were marked as huge security threats, the US government has no way of tracking them down.
CBP also failed to collect fingerprints from approximately 1,300 evacuees who entered the United States and
“The first names of at least 417 evacuees were listed as ‘unknown’ and the surnames of another 242 were also missing.”
The records of another 11,110 evacuees gave birth dates as January 1.
These scarce details were only recorded for those who went through the vetting process.
A damning Department of Homeland Security report on the evacuation said “untold” numbers of people leaving Afghanistan entered the United States without undergoing any scrutiny.
They also often missed basic data, such as names of evacuees, dates of birth or identification numbers.
In September 2022, despite the glaring problems, the State Department relaxed their rules to admit more Afghan applicants – even if they had worked for the Taliban.
If these individuals could prove that they were merely government officials or provided limited material support, their requests to enter the United States would be accepted.