Attack on Kabul: Biden tells attackers, “We will chase you and make you pay”

The terrorist attacks, which came after days of public and private warnings from Biden about a potential threat that could disrupt the massive air transport effort, have complicated the bloody last days of America’s longest war. This meant what Biden’s aides described as the worst day of his young presidency.

Now, in addition to evacuating thousands of people who desperately want to leave Afghanistan, Biden has tasked the military with another mission: to pursue 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 said could sooner arrive in vehicles or rockets at any time.

Biden pledged on Thursday to continue air travel, which he still says will conclude a self-imposed deadline next Tuesday to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country. He said terrorist attacks are the main reason he has tried 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 has happened.

“I am responsible for everything that has happened lately,” the president said.

Still, the devastation of the loss was evident Thursday. Biden, who had explained his decision to end the war that he does not want to inform more parents that his sons or daughters had died in Afghanistan, will face the same task in the coming days. The White House said the Pentagon was still informing relatives of the fallen troops before Biden made the calls. Biden has ordered the flags to be lowered at half-staff until sunset on 30 August.

Earlier, in his statements, Biden said the attack was a “what 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 continues to evolve and I am constantly updated,” he said.

The head of Central Command, General Frank McKenzie, warned during an afternoon briefing that additional ISIS attacks were still possible, including the use of vehicles or rockets.

“We thought this would happen sooner or later,” McKenzie said.

The explosions exposed the risks to U.S. troops and diplomats that Biden has warned for a week as a frantic evacuation effort at the airport accelerated. The pace of evacuations has slowed over the past two days as the security situation deteriorated, and several Western nations said their evacuation efforts were over.

Biden said the U.S. would continue to operate flights out of the country, and his aides said he did not hesitate on the Aug. 31 deadline to get everyone out of the country.

“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission,” said Biden, who said the United States was willing to retaliate for the killings, the first hostile death in Afghanistan since February 2020.

“If we can find who is associated with them, we will go after them,” he said. “Right now we are working very hard to determine the attribution, determine who is associated with this cowardly attack and we are ready to take action against them.”

Over the past few days, the risks of a terrorist attack at the airport seemed to grow by the hour. The extremely high threat from the Islamic State prompted the United States, along with the United Kingdom and Australia, to warn people to walk away from the airport gates late Wednesday morning.

The risk of possible terrorist attacks by the Islamic State subsidiary operating in Afghanistan has worried U.S. and Western officials almost from the moment it became clear that the Taliban would take control of the country on 15 ‘August.

Once crowds began to gather at Hamid Karzai International Airport, fear among officials monitoring the situation intensified in the face of an attack that meant chaos and fear among those trying to escape the country.

This is what happened on Thursday. McKenzie said he suspected a suicide soldier was being searched by U.S. soldiers at the airport before detonating the explosive.

The attacks quickly consumed Biden’s calendar. He was in the basement room with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Joint Chiefs of Staff President Mark Milley, for a briefing scheduled when he arrived. the first word of the explosions. The aides were still occupying their seats when the first reports arrived.

Vice President Kamala Harris also attended the meeting by videoconference while traveling in the air traveling between Vietnam and Guam. He canceled a planned campaign appearance in California and will return to Washington instead.

As the magnitude of the attack became clear, the president’s schedule was erased, including a meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which was rescheduled for Friday.

After concluding Biden’s meeting with his national security team, he continued to be briefed at 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.

Biden had raised the possibility of an attack – not by the Taliban, but by the ISIS group – last Friday.

“We also closely monitor any potential terrorist threat at or around the airport, including ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan who came out of prison when the prisons were emptied,” he said.

On Tuesday, explaining his decision to stay with an Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country, Biden offered a more terrible picture of the security threat.

“The longer we stay, starting with the sharp and growing risk of an attack by a terrorist group known as ISIS-K, affiliated with ISIS in Afghanistan, which is also the sworn enemy of the Taliban, every day we are in the land is another day we know ISIS-K is trying to attack the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians, ”Biden said.

This story has been updated with the death of a thirteenth member of the American service.