US President Biden has pledged that the United States will carry out strikes against the group responsible for the dastardly Kabul bombings that killed more than 100 people, including 13 Americans.
“To those who carried out this attack…know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said.
The President further added that the US knows the identities of the ISIS leaders who ordered the attacks. “We will find ways of our choosing, without large military operations, to get them—wherever they are.”
Biden in his statement said that he asked military commanders for plans to strike ISIS-K, saying the US will respond with “precision…at a place that we choose, and the moment of our choosing.”
Biden said that the US has reason to believe the leaders of the Islamic State-Khorasan terror group are behind the Kabul attacks. “With regard to finding, tracking down the ISIS [Islamic State] leaders who ordered this, we have some reason to believe we know who they are, not certain, and we will find ways of our choosing without large military operations to get them,” he said.
Biden said the Islamic State-Khorasan has planned complex attacks against US forces and others in Afghanistan after they were released from prisons during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
“These American service members who gave their lives, it is an overused word but it is totally appropriate here, were heroes. Heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous selfless mission to save the lives of others. They are part of an airlift and evacuation effort unlike any seen in history with more than 100,000 American citizens, American partners, Afghans who helped us and others who have taken safety in the last 11 days,” Biden said. “Just in last 12 hours or so another 7,000 have gotten out.”
He also declared the US would carry out its plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the month. “We can and we must complete this mission and we will,” Biden said, adding: “And that’s what I’ve ordered them to do. We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission. We will continue the evacuation.”
The Thursday attack was the deadliest day for US forces in Afghanistan in roughly a decade. More than 100 Afghan civilians also died in the bombings.