Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images
President Joe Biden denounced on Thursday the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport that killed a dozen US servicemen and wounded 15 plus.
Biden assured that the frenzied evacuation of US citizens and allies from Afghanistan will continue even when promised to “hunt down” those responsible for the attacks.
“For those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes harm to the United States, know this: we will not forgive,” said President Biden. “We will not forget. We will chase you and make you pay. ”
Biden said he had asked his commanders to find ways of attacking ISIS-K, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks that same day.
“We will respond with precision force in our time, place, at the moment we choose ”, assured Biden.
“These American service members who gave their lives,” Biden said, were “heroes who have engaged in a dangerous and selfless mission to save the lives of others.”
The president called Thursday “a difficult day” and promised that the United States will maintain its “Sacred obligation” to the families of the c ears.
The troops killed on Thursday were the first U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020. For the US military, it was a day with more deaths than any other since 1200, according to The New York Times .
Those deaths are precisely the kind of military losses that Biden has repeatedly said that was trying to avoid by ending the war of 20 years of the United States in the country.
Biden said that military leaders were waiting for their deadline of 31 August to leave Afghanistan, although he left open the possibility The possibility of sending more troops there to assist in the evacuations of Americans, if his military advisers ask for it, although he said it has not been requested.
The Pentagon has indicated that there are currently about 5, 000 people inside the Kabul airport waiting to board one of the evacuation planes.
The terrorist attack against the US forces stationed at the Kabul airport occurred five days after the date set by Biden himself for the end of the evacuation mission and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, on 31 of August.