Previously, the largest single-day loss of U.S. servicemen occurred while Joe Biden was vice president under Barack Obama. On August 6, 2011, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying 30 American servicemen, including 22 Navy SEALs, was shot down by Taliban fighters with a rocket-propelled grenade.
The suicide bombings occurred outside of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and the Baron Hotel attack killing 11 Marines, one Navy medic, and more than 60 Afghan civilians while 140 civilians were injured. Prior to the explosions, the Kabul Airport was in complete chaos as thousands of Americans, Afghans, and foreign nationals were attempting to flee the Taliban government.
“We thought this would happen sooner or later. Its tragic it’s happened today. It’s tragic to have this much loss of life,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said, according to NBC.
U.S. troops and NATO forces were using the airport for their evacuations. The Kabul airport has a single runway, and if it is destroyed, evacuation flights would no longer be able to land or take off. About 1,500 American citizens are still believed to be in Afghanistan. The bombings occurred less than one week from the Taliban’s withdrawal deadline of August 31st.
It is in the interest of both the Taliban and the US to blame ISIS, and both sides could gain something from the bombing—the Taliban in order to induce the US to pay them huge sums to complete the evacuation without further upset or delay by the bombing, and the US to further damage the botched evacuation in order to poison American citizens against further interventions (ie: Taiwan) and to create massive refugee flows.
According to reports, US officials were tipped off by UK and Russian intelligence before the bombings. The US had turned security over to the Taliban terrorists who were working the outer perimeter.
The Biden Administration reportedly turned over security to the Taliban and even gave the Taliban a list of Americans and Afghans they know are still trapped in Afghanistan.
“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”
Guests at hotels in the UK complained that the government was commandeering their hotel rooms and kicking them out in favor of Afghan refugees.
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