Top House lawmakers want the Pentagon to give more details on the lead-up to a suicide bombing outside Afghanistan‘s Kabul airport in 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops, following testimony from a Marine who claimed to have identified the bomber before the attack.
Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine Corps sniper who testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March, said he couldn’t get approval from his chain of command to shoot the terrorist, who was killed in what became known as the Abbey Gate bombing during the military‘s chaotic withdrawal from the country.
“Plain and simple, we were ignored,” Vargas-Andrews, whose leg and arm were amputated after the attack, said at the hearing.
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In a letter released Thursday afternoon, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, asked for a slew of documents related to the bombing.
“Battlefield decisions are often made in a cloud, 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,” Rogers and McCaul wrote in the letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley.
A Pentagon…
