Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The ISIS-K extremist group carried out a suicide attack at the Kabul airport on August 26 that killed over 170 people and injured over 200 others so far, including at least 13 and 18 U.S. troops, respectively. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks of any ISIL franchise and the greatest loss of American military life since a helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan a decade prior in August 2011.

U.S. officials and media have since praised their lost and injured soldiers as heroes, but some eyewitnesses told the BBC that not everyone was killed by the suicide bomber. Instead, they claim that U.S. troops killed an uncertain number of civilians in confusion, which remains to be confirmed. The Pentagon has thus far refused to comment, but it wouldn't be surprising if this version of events has some veracity to it. After all, U.S. troops opened fire on August 16 as part of their crowd control efforts there, which killed three people at the time.

The day before the attack on August 25, RT's Murad Gazdiev reported from the Kabul airport that "American troops call what is happening here 'World War Z,' alluding to the zombie film." This was a very disturbing observation in hindsight since it suggests that U.S. forces had begun to dehumanize the thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing from the Taliban. It would explain not only why they reportedly killed several people nine days earlier but also why they might have wildly opened fire right after the attack.

One can only imagine the chaos in the aftermath of an evening suicide bombing at that overcrowded airport under what were already highly stressful conditions, but that's still no reason for discipline to break down and for U.S. troops to start shooting all over the place reportedly. They're supposed to be better trained than that, though judging by the age of many of the U.S. troops who were killed (most were just 20 or slightly above), they might not have had the experience needed to respond to that unexpected situation properly.

It might never be known for sure since the U.S. military probably wouldn't ever release the details if it was true, but it might even have been the case that some of those same U.S. troops were killed by friendly fire, just like an unknown number of Afghan civilians reportedly were. At the very least, an independent investigation must be carried out by Afghanistan's de facto Taliban authorities and the United Nations in order to determine exactly how many refugees might have been killed by U.S. troops.

Everyone deserves answers, especially the American people whose military might have once again been responsible for killing Afghan civilians, even if it wasn't intentional this time. They'd ideally demand accountability but most likely aren't even aware that this might have happened since the BBC's report hasn't gained as much attention in their media as it should. Instead, the American people are arguing over whether U.S. President Joe Biden has blood on his hands for their troops' deaths due to his disastrous withdrawal.

It's now known those decision makers didn't heed warnings by some CIA and State Department officials who predicted that Kabul would fall to the Taliban a lot quicker than they expected. Had the Biden administration taken these reports seriously, there might not have been any panicked withdrawal to begin with. Much fewer people would have swarmed the Kabul airport, and that would have deprived ISIS-K of the thousands of soft targets there that they later attacked, which resulted in the deaths of those 13 U.S. troops.

Even worse, over 13 times as many Afghans were killed than Americans, yet few in the U.S. are blaming anyone other than ISIS-K for all their deaths even though the BBC's eyewitnesses claim that American troops were responsible for killing an unknown number of those refugees. Some of the U.S. troops now being eulogized as heroes by their media might have also been partially responsible for this massacre and/or could have been killed by friendly fire instead of ISIS-K's suicide bomb. There are too many questions and not enough answers.

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