Thursday's attack marked the first US military casualties in Afghanistan since February 2020 and represented the deadliest incident for American troops there in a decade. There are roughly 5,000 US troops at Kabul's airport, helping to evacuate American citizens, at-risk Afghans and other nationalities before Mr Biden's Tuesday deadline for evacuation. flags to half-staff across the country in honor of the 13.In addition to the 13 US troops killed, 18 injured were flown to Germany. A third, a 20-year-old from Texas, had joined the armed services out of high school.īiden ordered U.S. 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. Still, sorrowful details of those killed were starting to emerge. Their names have not been released pending notification of their families, but the Pentagon said Saturday they would be released soon. One was a Navy sailor and one an Army soldier. The Marine Corps said 11 of the 13 Americans killed were Marines.
service members died in the war and tens of thousands were injured over the past two decades. military members’ remains in 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. In an Oval Office appearance Friday, Biden again expressed his condolences to victims of the attack. intelligence assets and no military presence in the nation. A suicide bomb typically carries five to 10 pounds of explosives, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary assessments of the bombing.īiden still faces the problem over the longer term of containing an array of potential extremist threats based in Afghanistan, which will be harder with fewer U.S. officials believe the suicide vest used in the attack, which killed at least 169 Afghans in addition to the 13 Americans, carried about 25 pounds of explosives and was loaded with shrapnel, a U.S. Hank Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff he attributed the mistake to initial confusion.īased on a preliminary assessment, U.S. The initial report of a second bombing at the nearby Baron Hotel proved to be false, said Maj. It said there was just one - at or near the Abbey Gate - followed by gunfire. troops’ livesįew new details about the airport attack emerged a day later, but the Pentagon corrected its initial report that there had been suicide bombings at two locations. Safe at last for Afghan interpreter who aided Marine Corps major from Chicago, saved U.S.“They advised the president and vice president that another terror attack in Kabul is likely, but that they are taking maximum force protection measures at the Kabul airport,” Psaki said, echoing what the Pentagon has been saying since the bombing Thursday at Kabul airport. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s national security team offered a grim outlook. The president was warned Friday to expect another lethal attack in the closing days of a frantic U.S.-led evacuation. Pentagon leaders told reporters Friday that they were prepared for whatever retaliatory action the president ordered. “We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said. The airstrike came after Biden declared Thursday that perpetrators of the attack would not be able to hide. power to eliminate extremist threats, which some believe will have more freedom of movement in Afghanistan now that the Taliban is in power. military retaliated reflected its close monitoring of IS and years of experience in targeting extremists in remote parts of the world.
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