Congressmen demand answers after CNN report contradicts Pentagon investigations into deadly Kabul airport attack

CNN —

Eight Republican members of Congress have written to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urging him to explain discrepancies between CNN reporting last month about the ISIS-K attack that led to the deaths of 13 US servicemen and 170 Afghans outside Kabul airport in August 2021, and the conclusions of two Pentagon investigations into the incident.

The CNN report revealed that there were many more episodes of gunfire than the Pentagon has ever admitted, in the wake of the suicide attack in the final days of the American evacuation of Kabul. The reporting included a video obtained by CNN captured by a Marine’s GoPro camera that had not been seen publicly in full before.

The letter was sent on Tuesday by congressmen on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and presented a series of pointed questions for the Pentagon about its investigations into what was the deadliest incident in Afghanistan for decades – a brutal, bloody end point to America’s longest war. The eight congressmen, five of whom are veterans with experience in Afghanistan, urged Austin “in the strongest possible terms to account for the discrepancy between the results of the (US Central Command) CENTCOM investigation and this new reporting,” by CNN.

Much of the controversy about the Pentagon’s two investigations into the attack has focused on gunfire in the aftermath of the blast. Some Marines have told military investigators they felt they were being shot at or opened fire themselves, and 19 Afghan survivors told CNN in 2022 they were shot themselves or witnessed Afghans being shot. But the two Pentagon investigations – released in February 2022 and last month – concluded the only shooting in the aftermath came from US and UK troops in three bursts