JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden was heading to Dover Air Force Base on Sunday to honor members of the U.S. military killed in a suicide bomb attack during the evacuation of civilians from Kabul airport last week.
An Islamic State suicide bombing just outside Kabul airport on Thursday killed scores of Afghans and 13 American troops.
Biden was expected to receive the service members’ remains that were being flown back to the United States. Families of those troops were also expected to be present.
Thursday’s attack, which was claimed by ISIS-K https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/what-is-islamic-state-afghanistan-2021-08-26, the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, was the most lethal incident https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/didnt-need-happen-pentagon-seeks-answers-deadly-attack-2021-08-28 for U.S. service members in Afghanistan in a decade.
The bombing took place just outside the gates of the airport, where thousands of people have gathered to try to get a flight out since the Taliban returned to power on Aug. 15.
The Taliban’s rapid advance across the country amid the withdrawal of American and allied troops, and the chaotic scenes at the airport have presented Biden with his biggest foreign policy challenge to date.
Biden has vowed to punish those responsible for the airport bomb. The U.S. military said on Saturday that it had killed two ISIS-K militants in a drone attack in Afghanistan.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Frances Kerry)
