President Joe Biden vowed Thursday to retaliate for the terrorist attack that killed 13 US servicemen outside Kabul International Airport, even as he said the hectic mission to transport Americans from Afghanistan would continue.
“We will not forget. We will hunt them down and make them pay,” Biden said during a speech from the White House, hours after the Pentagon said 12 service members had been killed in two separate suicide bombings outside the entrance gates of the airport.
Shortly after Biden spoke, the US Central Command announced the death of an additional US service member, while the number of wounded now stands at 18.
In a moderate but firm tone, Biden said he asked the US military for options to respond to the blasts, which he said had been carried out by the Islamic State affiliate operating in Afghanistan.
“We will respond with force and precision to our time, in the place we choose and in the way we choose,” Biden said. “Here’s what you need to know: These ISIS terrorists won’t win.”
The terrorist attacks, which came after days of public and private warnings by Biden about a potential threat that could disrupt the mass airlift effort, have complicated the bloody final days of America’s longest war. It was what Biden’s aides described as the worst day of his young presidency.
Now, in addition to evacuating thousands of people desperately wanting to leave Afghanistan, Biden has given the military another mission: to hunt down and punish ISIS terrorists who killed Americans and dozens of Afghan civilians.
They must carry out both missions under the current threat of further attacks, which military leaders previously said could arrive at any time via vehicles or rockets.
Biden pledged Thursday to continue air evacuations, which he says will conclude next Tuesday, a self-imposed deadline for withdrawing all US troops from the country. He said terrorist attacks are the main reason why he has sought to limit the duration of the evacuation mission.
But he stood firm in his decision to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan and said he accepted responsibility for what had happened.
“I am fundamentally responsible for everything that has happened lately,” the president said.
Still, the devastation of the loss was evident Thursday. Biden, who had said in explaining his decision to end the war that he did not want to inform more parents that their sons or daughters had been killed in Afghanistan, will face the same task in the coming days.
The White House said the Pentagon was still briefing the closest relatives of the downed troops before Biden made the calls.
At the beginning of his remarks, Biden said the attack was one that “we’ve been talking about, worried about” for the past few days.
“We are outraged and heartbroken,” said the president, who cleared his schedule after the attack to meet with advisers for most of the day.
“The situation on the ground is still evolving and I am constantly being updated,” he said.
Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie warns during an afternoon briefing that additional ISIS attacks, including the use of vehicles or rockets, are still likely.
“We thought this would happen sooner or later,” McKenzie said.
The explosions exposed risks to US troops and diplomats that Biden has warned about for a week as a frantic evacuation effort at the airport picked up speed. The pace of evacuations has slowed in the past two days as the security situation deteriorated and several Western nations said their evacuation efforts had ended.
Biden said the US would continue to fly out of the country, and his aide said he has not wavered on the Aug. 31 deadline to get everyone out of the country.
“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not allow them to stop our mission,” Biden said, saying the United States was prepared to retaliate for the killings, the first deaths in hostile actions in Afghanistan since February 2020.
“If we can find who is associated with this, we will go after them,” he said. “We are working very hard right now to determine attribution, to determine who is associated with this cowardly attack and we are prepared to take action against them.”
In recent days, the risks of a terrorist attack at the airport seemed to increase by the hour. The extremely high threat from ISIS prompted the United States, along with the United Kingdom and Australia, to warn people to stay away from the airport gates on Wednesday night ET.
The risk of possible terrorist attacks by the Islamic State affiliate operating in Afghanistan worried American and Western officials from almost the moment it became clear that the Taliban would take control of the country on August 15.
Once crowds began to gather at Hamid Karzai International Airport, fear among officials monitoring the situation was heightened by an attack aimed at creating chaos and fear among those trying to escape the country.
That’s what happened on Thursday. McKenzie said he suspected the suicide bomber was being searched by the US military at the airport before detonating the explosive.
The attacks quickly consumed Biden’s agenda. I was in the basement situation room with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley for a pre-scheduled briefing when the first news of the explosions arrived. The auxiliaries were still taking their seats when the first reports came in.
Vice President Kamala Harris also participated in the meeting via video conference while on the air traveling between Vietnam and Guam. She canceled a planned campaign appearance in California and will return to Washington instead.
When the scale of the attack became clear, the president’s agenda was cleared, canceling a meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which was rescheduled for Friday.
After Biden’s meeting with his national security team concluded, he continued to be briefed in the Oval Office, according to the White House. The president’s virtual meeting with governors on Afghan refugees, which was scheduled for 3 p.m. ET, was also canceled.
Last Friday Biden had raised the possibility of an attack, not from the Taliban, but from the ISIS group.
“We are also closely monitoring any potential terrorist threats around the airport, including from ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan who were released from prison when the prisons were emptied,” he said.
On Tuesday, Biden offered a more dire picture of the security threat.
“The longer we stay, starting with the acute and growing risk of an attack from a terrorist group known as ISIS-K, an affiliate of ISIS in Afghanistan, which is also the sworn enemy of the Taliban, every day we are on it. ground is another day when we know ISIS-K is targeting the airport and targeting both US and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said.