2021 Kabul Airport Attack

On 26 August 2021, at approximately 17:50 local time, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt at Abbey Gate, one of the entry points to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack occurred amid the chaotic 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, as thousands of Afghan and foreign civilians gathered at the airport seeking to flee following the Taliban's takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS–K) claimed responsibility, naming the bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari.

At least 182 people were killed, including 169 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the US military — the first American military fatalities in the Afghanistan war since February 2020. The dead Americans included eleven Marines, one soldier from the 8th Psychological Operations Group, and one Navy corpsman. Two of the Afghan civilians killed were British dual nationals, and one was the child of a British national. At least 150 more people were injured, including 18 US military personnel. Following the explosion, gunfire erupted; US officials attributed some of this to ISIS–K gunmen, though eyewitnesses told reporters that at least some gunfire and resulting deaths came from panicked US troops, a possibility the Pentagon acknowledged at a 28 August news conference. In April 2024, CNN reported on previously undisclosed GoPro footage from a US Marine that showed extensive gunfire following the blast, which CNN said contradicted Pentagon accounts describing minimal gunfire; the Pentagon maintained its prior findings that all casualties stemmed from the bombing itself.

In the days after the bombing, the United States conducted two airstrikes. On 27 August, an airstrike in Nangarhar Province killed two people described by US officials as ISIS–K "planners and facilitators." On 29 August, a US drone strike targeted a vehicle near Kabul airport believed to be linked to ISIS–K; the strike instead killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children. An investigation by The New York Times found the driver was Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker for Nutrition and Education International, and that suspicious "packages" observed by surveillance may have been water containers rather than explosives. US Central Command later confirmed that no ISIS–K members were killed in the strike and that all those killed were innocent civilians; officials including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley confirmed this finding, though Milley had earlier called the strike "righteous."

World leaders, including US President Joe Biden, condemned the airport bombing, with Biden vowing to pursue those responsible. In April 2023, the Taliban reportedly killed the (unnamed) primary plotter of the attack. In March 2025, US officials announced the arrest in Pakistan of Mohammad Sharifullah, who was charged in relation to planning support for the attack; his trial opened on 21 April 2026.