The parents of two Marines killed in Thursday’s suicide attack at Kabul International Airport have expressed outrage over the US government’s handling of the withdrawal of US forces, with one claiming that the president Biden “turned his back” on his murdered son.
“They sent my son there as a paper pusher and then got the Taliban to go to security,” Steve Nikoui, Kareem Nikoui’s father, told The Daily Beast. “I blame my own military leaders … Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”
Steve Nikoui said on the website that a group of Marines who appeared at his door on Thursday evening received notification of his son’s death. Old Nikoui said he had stayed home from work after hearing the news of Thursday’s attack and had been “hooked on TV” waiting for any words from his son.
Nikoui said the Marines who broke the dreaded news were “more drowned than I am.”
“I was actually trying to comfort them,” he said. “But at the same time, I just wanted them to leave as soon as possible so that no one in my family would come back and see them. I thought it would be appropriate to explain them to them. “
Prior to being sent to Afghanistan, Kareem Nikoui had been parked in Pendleton Camp, near his family’s home in Southern California. Steve Nikoui recalled that his son made regular trips home on the weekends, often bringing “10 or 15 more Marines” with him.
“My wife and I felt very honored [since] these other boys were not at home as we were able to provide them with some kind of family life, ”said Nikoui, who added that her son“ loved it very much. [Marine Corps] family. He was devoted. I was going to make a career out of it and I wanted to go there.
“There is no doubt that he should be called to duty.”
In Missouri, the father of Marine Lance Cpl, 20. Jared Schmitz told KMOX radio station on Friday that he was “incredibly devastated” by the death of his son.
Mark Schmitz said his son, who had been sent to Afghanistan from Jordan in recent weeks, had always wanted to become a sailor.
“I’ve never seen a young man train as hard as he did to be the best soldier he could be,” he said. “And that’s an important part, obviously, of why we’re all devastated and sad, but now there’s so much anger because he wasn’t even given a chance to demonstrate all the skills he’d perfected and learned during the body.”
“He took the job very seriously,” Mark Schmitz said of his son. “And someone came and took the easy way out and ended it all for him and for us and for the others who were killed.”
When asked if he had a message for Americans lamenting the loss of his family, Schmitz replied, “Fear our leadership or the lack of it. Pray every day for soldiers who put you at risk. their lives and they do what they love, which protects us all. I think they are the only ones we can honestly say have their backs. “
Nikoui, Schmitz and 11 other members of the US service were killed when a suicide bomber struck the door of the abbey of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where thousands of people have gathered over the past two weeks in an attempt desperate to make evacuation flights of the Taliban. -controlled country.
In addition to the 13 U.S. forces killed, at least 18 members of the service were wounded. At least 170 Afghans were also killed in the attack, which was claimed by the terrorist group ISIS-K.
The attack has sparked a new round of criticism for the erroneous withdrawal, and the Pentagon admitted Thursday that it relies on the Taliban to provide security outside the airport through a system of checkpoints, where fighters have attacked and beaten anyone trying to pass.