A US review panel investigating the 2021 bombing at Kabul airport has uncovered previously undisclosed classified documents related to the attack, Sean Parnell, who leads the panel, said Wednesday, on the fifth anniversary of the bombing.
Parnell, senior adviser to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and chairman of the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel, said the documents were recovered from safes where they had been “stashed and hidden away.” He said the panel’s review made clear why someone had attempted to conceal them, but he did not disclose their contents or identify who had allegedly hidden them.
Parnell said the panel would continue following the evidence and would not release conclusions before the investigation is complete. He did not give a timetable for the final report.
The suicide bombing occurred on Aug. 26, 2021, at the Abbey Gate of then-Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during the US-led evacuation from Afghanistan. The attack killed 13 US service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians and was carried out by an ISIS-K suicide bomber, according to a US Central Command supplemental review completed in 2024.
The current review was established by Hegseth in May 2025 to re-examine the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the circumstances surrounding the Abbey Gate attack. Parnell was appointed to lead the panel.
The panel’s work follows a supplemental review by US Central Command that reaffirmed the findings of the original military investigation. That review concluded that the attack could not have been prevented at the tactical level and identified the suicide bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an ISIS-K member.
The discovery of additional classified documents could raise further questions about what was known and documented during previous investigations. However, the documents have not been made public, and officials have not explained their contents.
It therefore remains unclear whether the newly discovered material will alter any previous findings or establish new evidence concerning decisions made before the attack.
Parnell said the panel’s goal is to provide a fuller account of how and why decisions were made during the final stages of the US military presence in Afghanistan. The investigation remains ongoing.
