An additional Pentagon review into the events surrounding the deadly bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan has determined that service members who spoke out publicly about what they felt was their ability to prevent the attack were mistaken.

The bombing, which occurred in late August 2021^[1], targeted the large crowds of Afghans who were trying to leave the country in the last days of the American military presence and ahead of the Taliban's takeover. The attack killed 13 U.S. service members, including 11 Marines and a soldier and sailor, wounded dozens more, and killed at least 170 Afghans.

"Over the past two years, some service members have claimed that they had the bomber in their sights, and they could have prevented the attack," one of the officials who briefed reporters on Friday said. "We now know that is not correct."

Read Next: Transgender Veterans Sue to Force VA to Cover Gender-Affirmation Surgeries^[2]

Officials identified the man responsible for the bombing^[3] as ISIS-K member Abdul Rahman al-Logari. Aside from his name, military officials also confirmed that al-Logari was among several prisoners that the Taliban released in the days prior to the bombing, though one official stressed that "ISIS-K would still have been able and capable of conducting the attack" without al-Logari "because they had multiple bombers that were available."

The news comes just over a year after some of the service members who were defending the airport and responded to the bombing spoke out publicly and before Congress, alleging that more could have been done to stop the bomber.

That testimony prompted U.S. Central Command to order the supplemental review^[4].

Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine Corps^[5] sniper, told lawmakers in 2023 that "we were ignored" as they tried to get approval to shoot the person they suspected to be the suicide bomber.

However, the military officials who conducted the supplemental review said that al-Logari arrived on scene shortly before the bombing and service members had honed in on the wrong person.

Among the materials released to reporters, officials provided a comparison photo of the man Vargas-Andrews said he had in his sights with photos of al-Logari. The comparison noted that the officials found the "strongest negative possible rating" that the two were the same person.

One of the key issues that the investigation found was that "spot reports" -- instances of suspicious activity or behavior spotted by service members -- had become conflated with more developed intelligence reporting.

Officials noted that service members they spoke to as part of the review said the misidentified, bald man wasn't seen as having a weapon, "wires or bulging clothes indicating that explosives were present, and described no behavior that will allow them to conclude that he posed a threat."

The official reports asked for service members to be on the lookout for a man with loose clothes and groomed hair, a black bag and a child. The misidentified man that Vargas-Andrews and others focused on "had a backpack, which can be conflated with a black bag, he was clean shaven with a shaved head, which can be conflated with groomed hair, and he was with a teenager, which can be conflated with a child," an official explained.

In order to arrive at these conclusions, officials said they conducted an additional 52 interviews on top of the more than 100 already conducted in the original Central Command investigation, which was released in February 2022.

Military officials interviewed current and former service members across 24 separate locations, 13 states and six military installations.

"I think it's also very clear to us that as you talk to the different individuals, 190 total, every single one of them had a different perspective," one of the officials said. "Our job during the investigation was to take all these different perspectives and put the pieces together from those different perspectives."

In an interview with The Washington Post^[6], Vargas-Andrews broadly accepted the review's findings.

The review confirmed Vargas-Andrews' reports that the Taliban was routinely executing civilians at the airport who had gathered there in hopes of catching one of the last American flights out of the country.

"We found that the Taliban used excessive force, resulting in the death of civilians near Abbey Gate," an official said Friday.

Officials also stressed that as they conducted the review, "it became very clear to us that service members believed that what they were doing mattered, that it made a difference, and that it was important."

One official also noted that while "the new information did not change our Abbey Gate findings, it reaffirmed what we found two years ago, and I think it helped provide additional clarity."

Related: 'We Were Ignored': Veterans and Troops Detail Horrors of Afghanistan Evacuation as House Investigation Begins^[7]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday reassured the Philippines anew that the U.S. commitment to the country's defense^[1] is steadfast amid increasing concerns about provocative Chinese actions in disputed areas of the South China Sea^[2].

A day after President Joe Biden convened a trilateral summit involving himself, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the U.S. and Filipino foreign and defense ministers and national security advisers met to discuss strategic and military issues.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan hosted their Philippine counterparts at the State Department.

“Today’s meeting reflects the growing and deepening cooperation between our countries on a broad array of issues and of course our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea,” Blinken said in brief opening remarks. “We very much welcome this opportunity to pursue that cooperation, that collaboration and of course we stand with the Philippines in our iron-clad defense commitments including the Mutual Defense Treaty.”

Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo echoed those remarks. “We attach a lot of importance to this meeting especially in light of recent developments in the South China Sea, especially China’s escalation of its harassment,” he said. "We are determined to assert our sovereign rights, especially within our exclusive economic zone.”

Austin later hosted Marcos at the Pentagon, where they discussed ways to deepen military cooperation, including by increasing the frequency of joint patrols in the South China Sea. Austin noted that the Pentagon’s budget request for 2025 includes $128 million for 36 projects at Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites, which would more than double the amount it has invested since the program began 10 years ago.

“This visit here to the Pentagon reaffirms once again the strength of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines in the face of all of the threats and challenges that we have had to face together,” Marcos said. He said he hoped the agreements reached Thursday “will make the safety, the peace and the stability of the South China Sea a reality.”

On Thursday at the summit, Biden said the U.S. treaty obligations to its Pacific allies, like Japan and the Philippines, were “ironclad.” “Any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty,” Biden said.

The White House billed the first trilateral summit with Japan and the Philippines as a potent response to China’s attempts at “intimidation” and said it would send a message that China is “the outlier in the neighborhood,” according to an administration official.

The U.S. and the Philippines have had a mutual treaty in place for more than 70 years. Biden’s vigorous reinforcement of the American commitment comes in the midst of persistent skirmishes between the Philippine and Chinese coast guards in the disputed South China Sea.

Relations between China and the Philippines have been repeatedly tested by confrontations involving the two nations’ coast guard vessels^[3] there. Chinese coast guard ships also regularly approach disputed Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands near Taiwan^[4].

The so-called “gray-zone” harassment by China has included shining military-grade lasers at the Philippine Coast Guard, firing water cannons at vessels and ramming into Philippine ships near the Second Thomas Shoal, which both Manila and Beijing claim. In 1999, Manila intentionally ran a World War II–era ship aground on the shoal, establishing a permanent military presence there.

Chinese officials have bristled at criticism over their actions in the South China Sea and blamed the U.S. for exacerbating tensions.

Spokeswoman Mao Ning of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the Second Thomas Shoal — a primary source of contention with the Philippines — as well as the Senkaku Islands and said its actions in the South and East China Seas are justified, lawful and beyond reproach.

“We firmly oppose relevant countries flexing muscles and acting like bullies in the South China Sea,” she said. “Relevant countries, out of selfish interests, join countries outside the region and serve as their pawns to contain China. Our message to these countries: recent history tells us that eventually pawns will easily be abandoned.”

Biden, a Democrat, has made improving relations with the Philippines a priority since Marcos became the country’s president in June 2022. The relationship has had ups and downs over the years^[5] and was in a difficult place when Marcos took office. Human rights groups said Marcos’ predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings.

Marcos, the son and namesake of the country’s former dictator, said as a candidate he would look to pursue closer ties with China. But he has increasingly drifted toward Washington amid concerns about China’s coercive action.