Psaki said the next few days of the mission to evacuate Americans and others, including vulnerable Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, “will be the most dangerous period to date." Biden has set Tuesday as the deadline for completing the airlift. Biden announced in April that he would have all forces out by September. agreement to remove all American troops and contractors by May 2021. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban that called for the militant group to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. flags to half-staff across the country in honor of the 13. 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, a sometimes-lengthy process that Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said involves “difficult conversations." 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. “We have options there right now" to enable whatever retaliatory action may be ordered, Taylor said.īeyond the prospect of a one-time retaliatory strike to answer Thursday's suicide bombing, Biden faces the problem of containing over the longer term an array of potential extremist threats based in Afghanistan. Taylor said the Pentagon will be prepared. “We will hunt you down and make you pay," he said. 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 said in an address to the nation after the attack that the perpetrators cannot hide, and he vowed to strike back at the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. 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. Late Friday, the State Department again urged Americans to stay away from airport gates, including “the New Ministry of Interior gate."įew new details about the attack emerged a day later, but the Pentagon corrected its initial report that there had been suicide bombings at two locations. "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 that pushed the White House deeper into crisis over a chaotic and deadly conclusion to a war that began nearly 20 years ago.
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. military and intelligence teams on the ground and no help from a friendly government in Kabul. Hank Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.īy promising to strike the extremists who killed 13 Americans and dozens of Afghans, President Joe Biden now confronts the reality of finding and targeting them in an unstable country without U.S. “We have options there right now," said Maj. Pentagon leaders told reporters Friday that they were prepared for whatever retaliatory action the president ordered. The airstrike fulfilled a vow President Joe Biden made to the nation Thursday when he said the perpetrators of the attack would not be able to hide.