House Republican leaders on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees sent a letter Thursday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin questioning why a former Marine was told not to engage the suicide bomber who killed 13 American troops in Afghanistan in 2021.
Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March that the suicide bomber was identified earlier in the day — but he was told not to engage by a superior over uncertainty on who could approve the attack.
Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in the letter the Marine’s testimony “raises serious questions regarding the events leading up to the attack, which must be answered.”
“Battlefield decisions are often made in a cloud,” they wrote. “But in honor of the lives lost and those still living following that terrible day, it is incumbent we learn whether events were avoidable and if uncertain procedures, broken lines of communication, or worse, contributed to the lack of engagement.”
In addition to killing 13 U.S. service members, the suicide bomber wounded another 45 Americans and killed 170 Afghans in the August 2021 attack on Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul, the capitol of Afghanistan.
Last month, the White House confirmed that the mastermind behind the attack, a leader of the U.S.-designated terrorist group ISIS-K, was recently killed by the Taliban.
In his testimony, Vargas-Andrews, who was deployed to a Marine sniper team at the time, said in late August he was told to be on the lookout for a gold or white Toyota Corolla and a green Mazda convertible.
Vargas-Andrews said he was also told to be aware of a clean-shaven man with a black vest, who he said was known through U.S. intelligence at the time to be planning for the attack.
The Marine had inquired as to why the individual was not engaged if there was a full description, but was told “the asset could not be compromised,” according to his recollection.
The suspected suicide bomber was spotted on the day of the bombing — Aug. 26, 2021 — by Vargas-Andrews and his team.
“This was as serious as it could get,” he said. “I requested engagement authority. The response: leadership did not have the engagement authority for us.”
Vargas-Andrews said he and his team provided evidence to his battalion commander on the suspect but was still told not to engage, apparently because the superior officer did not know who could approve the engagement.
He added that the commander said he would find out how to run it up the chain of command, but the sniper team was never given the go-ahead to engage.
“Plain and simple, we were ignored,” Vargas-Andrews said. “Our expertise was disregarded.”
The March hearing saw emotional testimony from Vargas-Andrews — who paused multiple times in opening remarks as he visibly teared up — on the tragic bombing that killed his fellow comrades.
In the letter, Rogers and McCaul asked the Pentagon to provide documents, video and audio of the incident, including on the request for engagement of the suicide bomber.
The Kabul airpot bombing came amid a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan following roughly 20 years of American occupation.
The messy retreat from Afghanistan prompted bipartisan scrutiny and led to a House Republican investigation overseen by McCaul into the Biden administration’s planning.
The White House has so far refused to admit wrongdoing, largely pinning the blame on the Trump administration, though it has acknowledged ways to better prepare for evacuations in the future.