Amid the Islamic State suicide bombers attacked on Thursday outside Kabul airport were crowds of people gathered hoping to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the blasts killing dozens including 13 US troops, as President Joe Biden vowed to hunt down those responsible.
The United States military struck back at the Islamic State on Saturday, bombing an IS member in Afghanistan less than 48 hours after a devastating suicide bombing claimed by the group killed as many as 169 Afghans and 13 American service members at the Kabul airport.
However, on Friday, the State Department again urged Americans to stay away from airport gates, including “the New Ministry of Interior gate.”
U.S. Central Command said the U.S. conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State member in Nangahar believed to be involved in planning attacks against the U.S. in Kabul. The strike killed one individual and spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said they knew of no civilian casualties.
The airstrike fulfilled a vow President Joe Biden made to the nation Thursday when he said the perpetrators of the attack would not be able to hide. “We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said. Pentagon leaders told reporters Friday that they were prepared for whatever retaliatory action the president ordered.
“We have options there right now,” said Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
On Friday in an Oval Office appearance, Biden again expressed his condolences with a heavy heart to victims of the attack. The return home of U.S. military members’ remains in the coming days will provide painful and poignant reminders not just of the devastation at the Kabul airport but also of the costly way the war is ending. More than 2,400 U.S. service members died in the war and tens of thousands were injured over the past two decades.
The Marine Corps said 11 of the 13 Americans killed were Marines. One was a Navy sailor and one an Army soldier. Their names have not been released pending notification of their families, a sometimes-lengthy process that Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said involves “difficult conversations.”
Those killed in the attack and their sorrowful details are starting to emerge which adds to the agony. One Marine from Wyoming was on his first tour in Afghanistan and his wife is expecting a baby in three weeks; another was a 20-year-old man from Missouri whose father was devastated by the loss. A third, a 20-year-old from Texas, had joined the armed services out of high school.
However, the President ordered U.S. flags to half-staff across the country in honor of the 13.
