British sources dispute claim US forces kept gate ‘open longer than they wanted to’ before deadly attack last week
The UK and the US took a “joint decision” to keep Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate open last Thursday, British sources have said, despite what turned out to be a prophetic warning that a terror attack by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) on western soldiers and gathering crowds was imminent.
The fresh briefing comes in the aftermath of an unusually detailed leak of the run-up to Thursday’s deadly bombings, which had claimed that the Americans had kept the gate “open longer than they wanted to” so the UK could finish its evacuation from Afghanistan.